I spent yesterday at the Social-Loco conference enjoying listening industry luminaries and the technorati discuss the current and future state of social location services and their impact on our lives.
From dozens of ad-hoc recommendations from Robert Scoble to two new product announcements from Marrisa Mayer of Google, it was easy to get lost in the deluge of information, perspectives, and opinions.
In thinking about the energy and optimism that saturated the room, I found myself reflecting on why I believe most people spend the money and time to attend conferences. Most people that I talk claim to go to conferences for one of two reasons: Information and/or networking.
I think there is a third reason to go. Even if I don’t learn anything or meet anyone new, just being in the presence of so many ideas and competing opinions gives rise to new ideas and new ways of looking at my industry, business, and client opportunities.
Kudos to ConvergeLabs for putting on a relevant conference that fills an interesting gap in the “So-Lo-Mo” space. The news and posts that the event spawned are numerous and wide ranging.
Thomas Clabum of Information Week leveraged the conference announcements to address Google’s social strategy
As did Ben Parr of Mashable. (His post had garnered over 1300 tweets as of this morning.)
Ronnie Kerr summarized and put in perspective the lack of “check-in” mentions at the conference
I thoroughly enjoyed the interactions, seeing old friends and making new ones. I also enjoyed the information both from the stage and from the vendors. But most of all I enjoyed the energy and left with some new ideas, insights, and solutions.