After 5 years of service to my employer, I finally was able to go to a fully-funded out-of-state conference. From Tuesday to Friday I was in San Francisco for the CASE Social Media & Community Conference and had a great time. Well, despite my flight from NY to Chicago that was so turbulent that the flight attendants couldn't serve hot beverages for fear of burning the passengers.
I wasn't able to really see any sites, but I was able to take a visit to the Yerba Buena Gardens, where they have an Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and the SF MOMA store to buy a couple postcards and a paintbrush/pencil that I thought was genius. Unfortunately, the museum is closed on Wednesdays so I couldn't see any art. Also, SCVNGR had a trek set up for the conference that included some of these sites. I finished in tenth place for the trek challenges and received 10% off a SCVNGR license for my institution, which may come in useful if I can convince someone to actually use it.
The conference was really informative and fun. I met a lot of people from all over the country, Australia, France and Canada. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, which was very refreshing. I know too well how people in my industry can be very snobby, but that wasn't the case here (Get it, CASE? Anyway.). A lot of the people that I met I am now connected to on Twitter, which helps us keep in touch and exchange useful information, which I fully intend to do.
Every day included an interesting session on a different aspect of social media, as it related to higher education. I have a notepad full of notes from every session because I didn't want to forget anything that I learned, and I managed to steal about nine Westin pens.
On the second day of the conference, we were all broken up into 10 groups of about 10-12 people. Some attendees bailed on this activity, but I am glad that I did not. We each got a topic that we had to create a social media campaign around. My group (#6), whose theme was a spaceship launch, ended up having the best campaign and won the People's Choice Award that all of the attendees and judges voted on. I was really proud because we had some really great ideas, we worked well together and a video that was included in the campaign was of me pretending to be Dr. Melissa Kuehnle, professor of mechanical engineering (I know it's a stretch). So, I got to take home a Starbucks gift card for our big win. You can see our fake university and social media campaign by visiting any of these sites: Facebook, Twitter and web. I was on my laptop, Facebook, Twitter and iPhone the entire conference, as was everyone else. I was surrounded by my people: the social nerds.After three days in San Francisco learning, interacting and creating, I was exhausted but I was so glad that my flight home on Virgin America was very pleasant, and I was able to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. No better way to finish off my nerdy week!
Thank you to everyone that planned, taught and attended the conference. It was a great experience that I hope to repeat next year.
