General comments/experiences at Social Media Bootcamp 2009, Rockford, IL USA

#rockford #socialmediabc

First off, a HUGE thank you to the staffers, volunteers, and presenters of (and at) this event.I got to meet many great people while learning about various social media. Although a few parts could have been better organized, the event generally went off appearing to be fairly flawlessly executed.  The theme was “my kung fu is stronger than yours.”

Finding a free ticket for both me (@WeberJon) and a non-tweeting friend via the organizers’ scavenger hunt, I was able to attend this otherwise $200/$250 event this weekend. A great tweetup/kickoff was held on Thursday evening at Kryptonite, allowing those in attendance to mingle with some of the attendees and network over a great brew (and while attempting to sing popular music).

I had to work on Friday, therefore I did not attend the conference on that day-that said, many of the session topics on Friday seemed aimed more toward the beginner (so I do not feel I missed too much by skipping on Friday).  A Friday evening tweetup at Irish Rose was not heavily attended (as I was told–I was a non-attendee due to family commitments), which was my (and many others’) loss–Mike’s spread was immense and I personally can vouch for great food at his establishment (so I am saddened I had to miss it).

Saturday morning had me getting to the venue bright and early, strong coffee in hand. A few microphone issues and a heavily (via a huge can of Red Bull) energized Ray Smith gave us the “lay of the land” for the day and D.D. Griffith (@Griffsays) went over the list of presenters’ background. I attended two engaging presentations by Avery Cohen (@AveryCohen) on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google Analytics, a presentation by Heidi Sullivan (@hkskully) on free ways to monitor a social media campaign, and an open discussion session with Sarah Evans (@PRSarahEvans) on differing ways to make social networking more personal. I was hoping to catch Jen Knodel (@JenChicago) to ask her a few questions, but only saw her (briefly) in passing. I also missed getting a complimentry “head shot” taken at the event, which could have been useful for me (assuming my beautiful appearance did not break his camera—grin). The organizers reminded everyone about the tweetup at Carlyle Brewery-I did not hear much about this event, but I hope it went well (I had a family commitment to attend Saturday evening).

Sunday morning, with plenty of strong coffee in hand (my coffee is stronger than yours–LOL), we had a “demo project” to put the information into action. Tinker Swiss Cottage, Clinkenbeard, and Books By Terri were the three “clients” for this event. The organizers split us into three groups “playground style” (per my friend Laura Schade)  and I was fortunate to get to work on the Clinkenbeard project with some great people. Although I think parts of my presenting of our group’s ideas went over like a lead balloon, our group’s conversation and questions with Reg Gustafson hopefully gave him and others in the session a few ways to improve their efforts.

A few improvements in tracking the event into abilities/themes, the ability to have “open spaces”/break-out discussions outside of the scheduled sessions, and corporate sponsorship would take future similar events up to the next level in my opinion. I hope this event is part of a continuing conversation in the area on improving the skills and use of social networking.  For more information and comments, search on the hashtags used in this blog posting and also visit www.social-media-bootcamp.com

Big Announcement Today at Noon

Per a few reports online, Microsoft has a big announcement happening at noon today in regards to Silverlight. Correction-a just-now received Tweet from Anthony Handley says it is in about 14 minutes at http://www.seethelight.com

By the way-follow me on Twitter: @weberjon

I have been fortunate to have seen version 3 in beta of Blend and am actually excited about this version-which, for me, is a bit unusual for a Microsoft product. Although I am still a bit of the feeling that Windows 7 = Mohave plus possible service packs, I am strongly of the feeling that Expression Studio 3 (esp. when paired with Visual Studio 10, which I saw beta’d about a month ago in the Chicago ‘burbs by two huge proponents of WPF) will be a turning point for many designers; Adobe should be a bit nervous (not earthquake-shakingly nervous yet, but definitely nervous).

Here is an appetizer from a few months ago which should wet your whistle from uber-SL designer Corrina Barber on some of what is in store:  http://blogs.msdn.com/corrinab/archive/2009/03/25/9508683.aspx

Like in the mid-to-late 1980’s, this is going to be a damn cool time in which to be a designer…