Optimization Summits was nothing short of fantastic. Tami Siewruk and I were talking last November at Brainstorming about how she wanted to attend a social media conference that had a mix of presentations and hands on sessions. We commiserated about how there really isn’t a conference like that in the social space – especially when it comes down to what matters – making social media work for business (the theory and the idealism can be discussed in other spaces by other people). Tami said “That’s it I’m going to put this conference on in March (4 months away at that point) and I’m going to focus on giving people a hands on experience. Hence the tag line – see it, hear it, and do it – which is based on the concept of how people absorb information in learning experiences.
Opt Sum had some of the best people in the social space discussing case studies, providing specific next steps, and conducting hands on training that I’ve ever seen. Panels are great but there is a huge audience that wants meat and potatoes (metaphorically) in the form of training. And that’s just what Optimization Summits was. There’s cool and trendy food – see indo-chine noodles or Franco-Viet bistro fair – but what people really want is meat and potatoes. And Opt Sum delivered.
From Geno Church‘s inspiring presentation on integrating the online and offline experience to Team Juleen’s (Mark Juleen, Brent Williams, and Charity Hisle) deep look at a myriad of tools beyond Facebook – there was so much content that Mack Collier tweeted “Conference organizers: Force attendees to make a tough call on when session to attend at every time slot. Leads to WOM in the hallways”. Kim Cory put it best “I wanted to clone myself”.
Opt Sum started with a live video chat with some of the session leaders and I’ll be bringing this content to you as soon as it is available. There were extended intimate chats over dinner and karaoke that would contest the best Korean experience (in my opinion there isn’t a Korean who can’t sing – sue me if you disagree). From a speaker standpoint, this was a speaker friendly conference – speakers were excited to attend a new style of conference bringing in many well known speakers from different industries for the first time. There was an immediate and welcome sense of freshness, relevance, and excitement everywhere.
Highlights included Jason Falls strategy presentation, John Jantsch‘s generating referrals presentation, Erica Campbell‘s hands on learning on how to optimize your image and video assets, and Andy Beal‘s hands on presentation on social media monitoring. Social media is far beyond the hype cycle. The conference focused on lots of every day realities with running social media programs and integrating traditional with new media marketing.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be bring you content that recaps our experience at #Opt Sum. We’re going to act as curators and hope you can join the ride to make it that much better. Ciao for now!
-Duncan Alney
My absorption process is finally taking place. I finally started to work on some application from items I learned. This was a fantastic conference and it was amazing to see the wealth of experience and expertise. Thanks for the summation.
Comment by Trainingfactor on March 28, 2010 at 8:15 pm
All of my qusteinos settled—thanks!
Comment by Connie on June 25, 2011 at 4:14 pm