Posts tagged conference
Why Conferences?
01 year ago
It’s interesting to me to see how much information is available online for marketing professionals to further their knowledge. This has only been further enhanced with social networks giving marketing professionals the ability to connect, share ideas and knowledge in ways that were simple impossible just a few years ago. With this shift, it would seem logical that conferences would become less popular as they are displayed by their online counterpart. However, this certainly doesn’t seem to be the case with the upcoming PhoCusWright Conference that I’m attending next week, in that over 900 attendees are already listed on the conference site, which to me seems like there’s a high level of interest, at leaset in this particular travel conference. Check out the nifty trailer they’ve produced (I asked, and last I heard, Brian Olsen, the artist in the video, isn’t going to be demonstrating – I’m kind of bummed on that):
This all is leading to why I think that attending at least one conference every year or so is something that all marketing professionals should try to do. The thought behind this is to get out from behind the desk and try to get some new and different perspectives on trends and new ideas that might not be found even with all of the online opportunities that abound. I would also argue, that it’s good to look for conferences outside of your particular niche sometimes as that might be the way to find the idea that no other business in your vertical has implemented yet.
So, while I’m planning for PhoCusWright 2010, I’d like to put out two very different questions that I’d love to get your thoughts on:
- If any of my readers have attended a prior PhoCusWright Conference, I’d love to hear if you have any tips or suggestions that I should take into account when attending?
- What conferences are you planning, want to or have atttended in the past and how was it?
Thanks in advance, and let this also be a warning to those that follow me on Twitter, there will be a lot of conference related Tweeting going on from the 16-18th of this month, hopefully you’ll some kernels of wisdom in them!
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Prepare for Another Tahoe Snowcial
41 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in video
The date has been set (January 6-9. 2011) for the 3rd (I think) annual Tahoe Snowcial and once again, digital nomads, storytellers and other sundry hanger on’ers will converge on southern Lake Tahoe to network, learn, slide and engage in the general sort of debauchery that happens when ski industry folks get together in Nevada. I missed the first Snowcial and was hoping to get to the 2nd last season, but it was at the same time as my dad’s retirement party – truthfully, some ‘Sierra cement’ would almost have been welcome compared to the sub-zero arctic blast I got to ‘enjoy’ back in Minnesota. But, now we all have yet another chance to experience the wonderful world of “Snowcial” – check out this video to learn more:
Snowcial 2011 from Heavenly Mountain on Vimeo.
I hope I can find time to make the hop over to Tahoe as this sounds like an awesome event for those of us in the snow sports industry and there are more than a few people that I’d love to catch up with that I’m sure will be in attendance. Hope to see everyone in January!
Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer 2.0
132 years ago
Me and DJ - Utah in da house!
After having a great experience at the first Marketing Prof Digital Marketing Mixer (MPDM) last year in Scottsdale, I was excited to be able to attend again this year in Chicago.
At the event in Scottsdale I was busy absorbing a bunch of information and didn’t take the opportunity to do much networking. This year, in addition to getting a ton more great information out of the sessions, I made it a point to take full advantage of talking to as many of the insightful and smart people that were in attendance as I could.
I finally got to shake hands with (yeah I know, Swine flu whatever – there were people in white coats here so I felt safe) many people that I’ve corresponded with online, like Sonny Gill, Mack Collier, Ann Handley and Amber Naslund (if only for a brief moment), but I also had the good fortune to engage with some very amazing people including Stephanie Miller, Ron Ploof, Will Egan, Gretchen Harding and many many more.
My ‘highlights’ can be found in my Twitter stream and if you don’t mind sifting through some typos, here are my ‘raw’ notes: Day 1, Day 2 (these are both Word Docs too BTW).
I’m winding up with a quick vacation, so I’m still digesting many of the things that I heard at MPDM. But, my big takeaway is that there are a lot of brands doing some amazing things in the digital space but that the best approach is to (still), keep it simple, measure, adjust, and keep moving forward with anything that you do online, whether it be email, social, search or whatever. And oh yeah, I traveled all the way to Chicago to meet the energetic and enigmatic DJ Waldow, who now resides in Utah (see the photo) – sorry ’bout your Wolverines DJ!
Photo credit: MarketingProfs Live
Hope to see you at the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer 2009
22 years ago
I don’t get the opportunity to attend many conferences, but last year I was lucky enough to attend the first Marketing Profs Digital Mixer in Scottsdale (Email and Social Media: True Love Always is my all time favorite session at any event – photo is of that panel). It was such a great experience that I made sure that I could make it to Chicago for the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer 2009 coming up in under three weeks.
I’m confident the 2nd Mixer won’t be like the first one in that I know that I won’t have another conversation with Chris Brogan about Gary Vaynerchuk that started in the restroom and wound up in the hallway for 20 minutes. But, I’m positive that same openness and high level of engagement amongst all of the attendees will once again be a key ingredient in the MPDM.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to at MPDM 2009:
- Getting more of the energy and motivation that came from hanging around a group of such motivated and engaged people.
- A check up our digital marketing strategy and tactics – I want to be sure I’m not missing any low hanging fruit in our 2009-10 plan.
- Having Mack Collier review our blog and blogging strategy – this time in person!
- Finding ideas for work and myself that I never would have come across otherwise, from one of the sessions, the 1 on 1 sessions or the great networking that goes on.
I’m looking forward to seeing and meeting a bunch of people at the Mixer, if you’re going, please feel free to give me a shout out either in this posts’ comments, or on Twitter @eric_hoffman and finally, if you follow me on Twitter, let me give you a “heads up” that there will be a few Tweets coming from me with #mpdm in them on October 21 and 22!
