Saturday, October 20, 2007

ConvergeSouth Saturday, Part 2

The social networking panel was interesting, mostly because it seemed while people liked the idea of Facebook, it doesn't exactly work for professionals. And LinkedIn doesn't seem to be quite as social as Facebook.

There was some good discussion regarding managing your online identity, with the consensus being it's better for you to manage your own brand than to allow others to manage it for you. I was intrigued when Elisa Camahort made the observation that in about 10 years all the kids who have party pictures of themselves on Facebook and MySpace will be the bosses and they might think it's weird if their future employees DON'T have an online presence.

What was really interesting about today's audience for ConvergeSouth was its age. Most of the people in the audience looked like they were 30-35 and up. Now some of it could be because the 20-somethings were all sleeping. After all, it did start at 9am. But what I'm wondering is if they all are so busy doing it that they don't need to come to conferences to learn about and discuss it.

The afternoon discussion around better blogging was really a great conversation led by Ed Cone and James Portzman -- running the gamut from creating a nice-looking blog without hiring a web designer or being one, to finding the topic you're interested in, to having a conversation with your readers. Loved Ed's basic advice:

Have a take, and don't suck.

ConvergeSouth

Just had a great keynote speaker, Elisa Camahort of BlogHer! Really great stories of how bloggers, mainly women, are connecting, sharing, making a living, making a difference and creating a community.

Next panel is social networking -- which I'm interested in as a novice Facebooker.