I’ve given you that preamble for perspective. You see, today I’m at Gravity Summit in Cambridge, MA (part of the FutureM collection of sessions this year) and the last time I attended this event, I was THAT guy. I shared 265 tweets in the span of six hours. I made it possible for everyone to experience the event 140 characters at a time. And I got some flack from my followers.

So, today as I cover the Summit, I’m not going to go overboard. I might tweet a bit and share some photos, but I’ll do most of my work via blog posts here and over on UniversalHub.com. I might even share some info with other news outlets for whom I write.

By the way – if you want to exclude the chatter – or more likely INCLUDE all the conversation about the event – focus on #gravsum via Twitter.

Also, if there’s something you’d like to hear about, let me know. Here’s the photo of the agenda…

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Post tags: Boston, cambridge, conference, futureM, gravity summit, gravsum, social media

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Now, this post isn’t a recap of the event – because I didn’t attend.

It’s not a recounting of the parties – because I didn’t haphazardly show up there.

It’s also not a sharing of photos and videos from that gathering – because I stayed away.

And why?

Because it would have been in bad form to insert myself into a conference where the attendees had paid LARGE money for admission, just to say I rubbed elbows with the Twitterati in a magical place like Disney World.

Before I flew into Florida, I had planned to swing by some of the evening events. That was before I found out the group was going to be renting out the entire China Pavilion at Epcot or reserving a private tour of Tower of Terror.

So, the extent of my interaction with Mashable Connect was via hashtag and on FourSquare.

I know the people had great fun and learned a ton. And I look forward to being invited to the next one.

What are you doing this weekend?

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Post tags: barger, cashmore, conference, disney, epcot, manners, mashable connect, orlando

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Let’s answer that question here for everyone. What I’m going to answer in a few simple points is why my appearance at SXSW 2011 is doubtful.

1 – The event is becoming – or has become – more society than substance. Seeing and being seen with the right people is a primary focus of many attendees. It’s almost gotten to the point where you can go to SXSW and not even walk into the Convention Center. In fact, I know some people who haven’t seen a session yet and attend every year. My friends Steve Garfield, Peter Kim and Aaron Strout certainly attend some events, but they’re also working when the show comes to town. And they use SXSW to connect with people they can’t talk to at home. *If you’re going to SXSW to talk to and drink with your friends from home, that’s just silly.

2 – There’s not enough time to do everything. The best sessions often are scheduled at conflicting times. The evening events are all set to occur at the same time. And heaven forbid that you spend a few moments trying to catch up with a friend – then your entire schedule is blown. As an example, I’ve heard that Tech Karaoke is now taking place March 15 – that’s getaway day for the majority of people visiting Austin, but there was no other time to put it with so many other events on the docket.

3 – Other events are starting to offer better content in a less frenetic environment. You can now go to Social Media Week or Mashable Conference or BlogWorld or events in your own city that offer richer connections, conversations and community than you can find at SXSW.

4 – It’s a money suck. That is, to go to SXSW when it costs $500 for a pass, $500 for a flight and $150+ per night for your hotel (if you can convince folks to share a room with you and your snoring), the final tally can be around $2000 for four or five days in Texas. You could spend a week in Paris for that. Or buy a scooter. Or upgrade your camera gear to a Canon 7D kit.

Ultimately, the only way you’re going to see me in Austin this year (and no, I didn’t make it onto a Ford Focus Rally team for some reason, so that’s out too) is if the balance sheet leaves me in the black financially, socially and intellectually.

I do have some irons in the fire and already have my pass and a hotel room reserved. But I’m willing to sell that room (Hilton Austin right across from the Convention Center) and swallow the pass if nothing materializes. I’ll miss the parties and the people, but I’ll be happier knowing I can use my time and money a little more wisely, later this year.

What’s your take? Why do you go to SXSW? What’s it costing you this year?

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Post tags: #sxsw, conference, party, society, time, value

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Irony? Perhaps. Especially when you think about what I do — I create content in various forms for myriad clients. Listening to Margot Bloomstein and Colleen Jones, I actually got a few new nuggets of assistance on how I might better manage my day-to-day operations as a content catalyst. And also what I can jettison in my list of things to do.

Here’s that session overview. For more, hit up either Margot or Colleen on Twitter – they’re at @mbloomstein and @leenjones.

Right from the start, Margot struck a chord with her question about content strategy. She asked…

“When did a clear plan and concrete communication goals become nice-to-haves?”

Seriously. How often have you been in a meeting where the communication’s plan was driven by what management wanted and not by what might motivate the audience? I know it happens to me all the time with some of my corporate clients. They pay me to create missives, brand messages, customer profiles and spec sheets. And for the most part I have freedom to do the job the way it should be done. But from time to time I find myself hamstrung by directives from on high.

When facing this forced track, I often have to alert the client that content isn’t what they want to hear. Not what they feel like saying to themselves about themselves (can you say daily affirmations?), but messaging that means something to your paying audience.

Essentially, this gets down to the entire team knowing what content strategy really is. Margot gave the definition:

Content Strategy is Planning for the creation, aggregation, delivery and governance of useful usable and appropriate content in an experience.

What this definition really does is set content strategy apart from other types of communication. Underlying this philosophy is the belief that the Web isn’t a static medium. It does not exist in one point in time. How will interaction occur in the future.

Essentially, before you can create a message, share it with the world and then start counting your receivables, you need to have a plan. A truer sentiment in business operations has seldom been shared.

The session went much deeper than this, but right now I’ve got to run across town to look at some new cars and see what’s happening at the Auto Show.

But for the first time in a while, I was able to sit back and really listen to the content…how very appropriate.

And I liked the session because it really dug into the nuts and bolts of sharing a vocabulary between divisions and professionals. It gave ideas on how to collaborate, refine messaging and really determine what a company is looking to convey in their messaging.

This and other sessions are continuing throughout the day today at Gilbane. If you have a chance and want to learn something about content, you might want to head over to the Westin.

How do you manage your messages? Do you even know what your most important content is? Please share in the comments here.

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Post tags: cms, conference, content strategy, gilbane boston, tradeshow

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In fact, I’m currently listening to some guy from Microsoft give a keynote about sharing information across businesses. Allow me to ignore the session and think about the great stuff around the show.

Best things I’ve seen are the give-aways on the show floor. While the exhibit floor is a bit small, almost every vendor is giving away an iPad. The funny thing is that in an environment so dominated by IBM, Microsoft and other PC-centric companies, the big draw is an Apple product.

I’ve also been impressed that companies are starting to embrace the theory that they should listen to their employees and provide them with the tools they need to collaborate within the walls of the organization. Exhibiting at E2.0 are no fewer than five companies that offer tools that allow employees to either share opinions about company policies or to share, brainstorm, collaborate and be more productive at work.

The HUGE surprise for me was that Brookstone Corp of Merrimack, NH has signed on to use a system like the ones listed above. Why’s this a surprise? I’ve worked with Brookstone and they have ALWAYS been my example of a legacy-thinking firm. The one firm of the hundreds I’ve worked with that would NEVER EVER wake up to the power of open communication.

Image courtesy of http://samsonblinded.org/blog/head-in-the-sand.htm

But I guess everyone can learn and I’m thrilled that the company is embracing technology that I think will make them more effective and productive. Kudos guys!

The bad things about the conference aren’t too numerous. I guess the biggest thing is the layout of the venue. I don’t like to walk. So why would you set a conference up where the sessions and the exhibit hall are at complete opposite ends of the hotel? My fix would be to allow folks to walk outside to get to the exhibit hall instead of going upstairs, across the entire hotel and downstairs just to get from one to the other.

Oddly, the door to the street from the session area is RIGHT NEXT TO the doors at the back of the expo area. Walk a mile or walk 100 feet? You tell me which would make my feet happier.

And the only other thing I found lacking was a true variety of topics and vendors. Sure, there are a lot more sessions to go, but from what I’ve seen so far, a lot of people are parroting each other. Cloud this, silo that, collaborate here, share there, and lots of talk about silos and internal communities. What I think is really missing (ironically the topic during the current keynote) is content curation and creation.

If you’re going to have a message, you should definitely know how to share it. Especially with internal audiences across the enterprise.

What’s the takeaway? The conference is, like so many events in the tech space, invaluable as a networking event. The sessions are for the most part informative and inspiring (good speaker selection from what I’ve seen so far). And the exhibit floor could stand to be more diverse, bigger and be better located.

Image from http://www.deletetheweb.com/unstuck/archives/2009_01.html

Are you missing something by not being here? Definitely. But follow me on Twitter and bookmark this blog for more info on the show. Hope to see you at the next tech event.

What’s the best conference you’ve attended this or last year? And why?

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Post tags: conference, enterprise 2.0, evaluation, Jeff Cutler

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