Have you done a "Speed Conference?" The Inbound Marketing Summit, in San Francisco last week, successfully delivered 20-30 minute rapid-fire presentations from some of the most valuable and experienced minds in the Social Media industry. Wow, my brain hurt - in a good way!The goal was to help you and your company efficiently conjure more activity (read: Sales!) from the Internet and Social Media activities. The result was amazing... I was amazed with the amount of new, successful real-world examples (see TrackingTwitter Brands) ... I was amazed with all the proven solutions available to be deployed (see the hand-picked vendor list HERE) ... I was amazed that everyone was eager for more (see happy faces below)!
The above pix show the two elements of a successful event - senior players at successful companies casually sharing what is working for them... and fun parties! Yes, that's Justin Levy once again at the center of the party.
Chris Brogan is moderating the Discovering The Power of Your Community session with (in this order) Marcus, Joe, John, and Ross. While their insight was hugely helpful about what is working (innovate, ask, and iterate) , it is still difficult to choose the right technology partner/platform for your specific situation.
Last Fall DestinationCRM lists and comments on Gartner's opinion that there are still no "Leaders" in this Social Software space. I used Casper to make this point the previous year.
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The below pix are a just a few highlights - also check out the live stream of media and Twitter HERE:
- Tim Ferris Skypes in from NYC. winning the "most words per minute" award. It's about focusing on elements of your life that lead to salvation and sales. His Four Hour Blog mostly pushes the latter.
- New friends of mine and each other. Hubspot's Mike Volpe shares a smile between sessions with Ruth (The Truth) White-Cabbell - she launched the first external corporate Blog at Cisco called The Truth About Marketing. Check out Ruth's fresh perspective and info on their Partner marketing initiatives.
- Tim O'Reilly is my Grateful Dead. I try to see him everywhere possible. His arguments for "Give more than you get" keep me on course.
- David Meerman Scott (create your World Wide Rave) and Paul Gillin (it's a bottom-up world) set the vision for these events. It is great to grab a drink with these guys and dig into the stories behind their stories.
Come to Inbound Marketing Summit - Dallas in May and Boston in September to make your own connections and stories!
Here are two favorite quotes:
“Every marketer is now a publisher, every publisher is now a marketer and every consumer is now both.” - John Batelle, Federated Media
“Outbound Marketing was limited by the width of your wallet. Inbound is only limited by the depth of your creativity.” - Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot