Yesterday I attended the first annual Internet Summit in Chapel Hill NC. I was excited to see that an event of this type was able to draw a crowd of over 600 attendees. A quick search this morning turned up only a few posts about the event.
- Duke Thinking Online assesses the event positively, particularly liked the SaaS and Social Media sessions.
- Taylor Barr comments on Bob Young’s (Red Hat and Lulu.com founder) presentation.
- Online Community Strategist provides notes from the Corporate Blogging session.
Following my initial enthusiasm, I quickly became underwhelmed by the old-school atmosphere of the event. Every session, with the exception of the opening keynotes, were panel discussions, considered by many to be one of the weakest presentation formats. There was little opportunity for the “audience” to participate. The one exception was Jim Tobin using Twitter during his session to field questions. Yes, the other sessions did take questions, but it was always just a couple of quick ones during the last 5 minutes. Not what I call engaging the audience.
Another thing that bothered me was that there was a strong theme, in the sessions I attended, toward using the internet only as a customer acquisition tool; CPC, Page views, traffic, conversion, etc. I heard almost no one talking about how online tools can also be used to keep customers and add value to the customer relationship, through things like better customer service, and communities.
And my final rant, there was no attempt (oops, my bad, there was a “networking lunch”) little opportunity for attendees to interact. Sessions were back-to-back with typically less than the scheduled 15 minutes before the next session. I would have liked to see a published attendee list, a pre-conference social space, an official conference backchannel and conference tag.
PLUS
I realize it is not like me to rant so much, but I think we have such a great opportunity to show off how this area of the country has so much to offer, and I want our local events to be excellent. And to show that I am not just sitting in the back row lobbing grenades, I would be happy to talk to the folks that put on the event and look at combining Internet Summit 2009 and BlogCarolinas next year, taking the best from both and holding a truly world class event.
6 Comments
Good point about the interaction aspect of it, although I did love the fact that everyone basically hijacked Twitter and used it to network/make plans/chat. That’s making social media work!
Thanks for the post.
- olivia.
Ha! I think this proves you are not qualified to comment on high quality and the irony is strong here. Calssy, very calssy!
“taking the best from both and holding a truly world calss event.”
I left feeling a bit hollow inside, myself. I just didn’t walk away from the conference feeling exhilarated at all, and I’m not sure that I learned that much either. After the corporate blogging panel, I drifted a bit. I did twitter a great deal and posted some of my dismay on that platform. But, I never found the feedback forms. And I was looking for them. Hopefully they will solicit feedback via e-mail.
To my anonymous friend,
Thanks for catching my typo, but at least I am willing to put my name on my commentary.
Lee, thanks for the summary. I hope they ask for feedback, too, since I share many of your opinions on the conference. Looking forward to the next BlogCarolinas, and happy to do anything I can to help.
Hey Guys, as one of the organizers we welcome all feedback… feel free to ping me directly at scott@techjournalsouth.com. There are certainly things that we can improve on given its a first year event, but we have also received an abundance of positive feedback for bringing such an event to the area. We hope to build on year 1 and continue to bring RTP along as a web community. Thanks!