It’s not like Cory Doctorow (creator of Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things) doesn’t get a lot of attention already at SXSW. He is a great speaker, on several panels, in addition to working with EFF and Creative Commons.
But he definitely got attention when he walked in to Bruce Sterling’s panel and said, “I’m taking away the wireless connection if I don’t get a plug!”
When you have laptops around the room all online thanks to WiFi, that causes everyone to stop and listen. I quickly offered him mine, but fortunately he didn’t take me up on it because if he had my laptop battery would probably be dead by now.