Somewhere in between soulless automation and exhaustive real-time interaction, lays a social media engagement middle-ground that many of us struggle to find.

It’s a territory that we here at KaneCo think will be mastered a new breed of user – the social cyborg, a person who supports their social media with a host of subtle tools and technologies, but who also appears, from the outside, to be always present and responsive in the moment (essentially, mastering the perfect blend of automation and authenticity).

Kary and I hope to explore the rise of the social cyborg, and how we all can become one, in a tag-team presentation at the 2013 SXSW Interactive conference. And, we’d love to have our help to make it a reality. If you have a moment, please visit their panel picker site and give us a vote. (Unfortunately, you will have to log in first. And, yes, we know that’s a pain.)

We’re planning on arguing the pros and cons of both sides of the equation. Kary will be lobbying for tools, and I’ll be lobbying for doing as much as possible in real time. (The irony, of course, being that I actually AM a cyborg — chock full of metal parts — who technically should fall on the side of my robot brethren. I’m soooo getting kicked out of the cyborg club.)

But, in the end, our main goal with this talk is to discuss how to combine the best of both worlds — how to use the hottest tools and technologies for social media content curation, aggregation, syndication and coordination while also tapping into your inherent improv ability to improve the quality of your real-time engagement.

We hope this topic is as interesting to you as it is to us. And, we look forward to doing a sneak peek of the presentation in the Twin Cities before taking the show on the road.

In the meantime, thanks for your support and your vote.