At one point on Thursday during her session at Optimization Summits in Dallas, CK mentioned a type of technology and how marketers could utilize it effectively. Then she mentioned another, and the audience was so enthralled that an hour-long discussion on just these tools commenced.
Was she talking Twitter? Facebook? Blogs? Hell no, she was talking QR codes and Geo-Fencing.
Want more? Chris Penn was talking email marketing, Geno Church was talking creating customer evangelist movements. Even those of us that did discuss social media, did so in the context of combining it with other areas. Jason Falls talked about improving the SEO of your company blog, I talked about learning from rockstars to use social media to cultivate brand advocates.
This is one of the things I loved about #Optsum, Tami put together a stellar speaking lineup. Yes, I am probably biased since I am friends with most of these speakers, but I learned something new in EVERY session I sat in. And you have to remember that most of these speakers I had already heard before. But they brought something completely new to the table for attendees, and gave them a completely new way of thinking about improving their marketing efforts. In fact I would rank the speaking lineup at this event on par with Social South 2009 and the first Digital Marketing Mixer in 2008 as being the best group of speakers at any event I’ve attended.
The sessions were all engaging, and the speakers made a point of getting the audience involved. Most of the sessions were fairly well-attended, even though there were up to 8 tracks available for some slots. More on that in a moment.
The content was top-notch, and the speakers were excellent. At the end of the day, that’s probably the most important factor in determining if an event was worth your time.
Here are the things I didn’t like about #Optsum, and I want to mention these to help other event planners in organizing similar events. But I should point out that Tami has been interacting with attendees and based on their feedback, will likely improve most or all of these points for the next event. Which is another reason why Tami rocks!
First, #Optsum was running alongside Brainstorming, which is a much larger event aimed primarily at the Apartment industry. #Optsum usually had 4 tracks going at once, and if Brainstorming did as well (as it did for much of Thurs), then attendees had to choose between EIGHT tracks, assuming they bought tickets to both. I noticed higher attendance in the sessions on Friday, and I am sure this factored into it.
Second, I hated the layout of the hotel. It was absolutely huge, so big that it covered two adjacent blocks. Which meant that knowing that the session you wanted to go to was on the 1st floor wasn’t enough, you also needed to know which side of the street on the 1st floor it was! Which made for a LOT of running around. And the directions posted in the hotel weren’t very helpful and the maps were very hard to read. This wasn’t really Tami’s fault, it was a byproduct of the Sheraton just being too damn big and confusing.
Other than those two areas, the event itself was wonderful and at $500 or so for admission, it was an absolute steal of a bargain for attendees for 2 days of learning. And I have to say that Tami and her team did a fabulous job working with me as a speaker to get me to the event on time, on coordinating all my travel, and everything. In fact it was probably the best experience I have had so far with event organizers.
Below is the deck from my Think Like a Rockstar workshop. I was proud to say that the session was very well-received, and the deck itself was the biggest I’ve ever made. If you attended, thank you SO much for doing so, I was thrilled with the turnout, I believe the room was full by the time the session got started.
All in all, I would heartily recommend #Optsum to anyone that is considering it, and if Tami asks me to speak at the next one, I would accept in a second. It was a wonderfully informative and valuable event, and I honestly didn’t hear one negative word about any of the speakers or sessions, which is actually quite rare.
If you attended #Optsum, what did you think?
Mack, I am in the middle of writing a summary of my #optsum experience, and my big takeaway was similar. There’s some technology convergence happening… not in the sense that QR codes and blog SEO are going to be one and the same, but in the sense that the silos in social or mobile media are going away. Businesses and brands can’t just “do Twitter” or “have a FB page” or “have an online strategy.” More than ever, you must understand that every way you potentially touch your customers matters. The movement from talking AT through talking WITH to sharing LIFE is what intrigues me most.
As you pointed out in your (awesome!) session, rockstars are successful because they are members of the communities that self-select to become fans. Not in the “community manager” way… in the “I love the whole thing we’re about, too!” kind of way. They understand fans because they are fans. It sounds simple, but it really is a very big idea that should change approaches to mobile, social and even traditional marketing. Thank you, thank you (and thanks to all the OptSum speakers!) for making me think bigger. 🙂
Hey Mandy! Yes you are right, the sessions were really geared toward integrating social media into existing marcom efforts, which I think is key.
And what REALLY made #Optsum so awesome was getting to spend so much time with all my friends like you and Connie and CK and Zane and Jonathan and Charity and Jason and Geno and Jill and and and 😉
Hope our paths cross again soon!
Social media has never “lived on an island,” so I think it’s great to see more conversations about integrating marketing and measurement. The idea of using *all these tools* can seem very overwhelming for many marketers and business owners, especially at first. There’s no one provider that does all of these tools the best, so many companies are either using mediocre vendors or skipping the additional channels that could help them extend the reach of their communication efforts.
Because of this, it’s more important than ever for marketing consultants and vendors to be aware of the trends and the technology that’s available … and, perhaps most important, what they’re good (and not so good) at. I find it’s much easier for me if I can lean on vendors that are making great products & services for things like SMS campaigns, SEO software and other services that help me and my clients get more out of everything we do.
As always, great to see you in Dallas, Mack!
I am with you on the crossover Mack. I had so many responsibilities at Brainstorming that it prevented me from attending many of the Optsum sessions. I will also agree with you that Tami is absolutely one of the most amazing people I have ever met. The ability to bring so many awesome people together to a major conference and to have so much interaction and fun is just over the top. Great recap my friend!
Thanks Jonathan! Hated that you were so busy with Brainstorming that you didn’t get to spend much time with #Optsum attendees. I think I heard someone say that Tami is thinking about separating the two events for next time. I think that would be a good idea, and hope I can see you at the next one!
Mack –
It’s great to hear I’m not overdoing it when I wax poetic about how great the speaker lineup at OptSum is. It’s definitely quite unbelievable. I’m always shocked that a property management puts a conference like this on. The industry is lucky to have someone like Tami thinking ahead like this.
I agree on the format and low attendance at some sessions. I would challenge the crew to find ways to force less choices per session. In other words, I really shouldn’t be forced to choose between Christopher S. Penn, Geno Church and Jay Ehret. Find a way to let me see all of these guys. (Maybe even set up a simple flip cam and at least send out the videos to all attendees).
And yeah, the layout at the Sheraton this time around was a bit overwhelming. I definitely liked it more at the March event.
It’s funny you brought up CK’s discussion. It probably wasn’t my favorite panel, but it was the one that will stick with me, for the very reasons you brought up. I was blown away at a) how much she knew about mobile, and further b) how much so many others in the room knew about it. The feeling at OptSum was that it’s time to move on from dancing in theory when it comes to social media. It’s now been around long enough that we can start getting some concrete results out of it, and here are some detailed examples of what folks have been doing.
bd
@bdunc1