Join Us at Free Digital Conferences in Boston and Holyoke

By Dave Wieneke | in Conferences & Meetings | 27 Mar 2013 | No Comments

This Friday, March 29, 2013 there’s a great FREE conference on digital media going on at Suffolk University, which is one of my favorite places to guest lecture. Its called the Bridging the Gap, and its about what it takes to lead and profit from the latest developments in digital marketing.

I’ve guest lectured at Suffolk several time, and was thrilled to be back as their keynote speaker. This year I’ll be sharing thoughts on the wisdom of chasing trends, customer experience, what we learned for the 2012 digital presidential battle – and some tools I’ve found helpful in helping think through digital strategy. But the best part is who you’ll meet, smart students, businesses that want to lead with digital, and a great line up of professors and digital doers. Their Twitter stream is at: #BtheG.

This Saturday, Podcamp Western Mass. is back – an “all thing digital” un-conference, where people share tools and ideas to help each other succeed online. Its been two years since I was at Podcamp Western Mass, but I’m still in touch with the gang I met then.  Since Boston’s Podcamp faded to dark, they is the nearest place to go and talk shop with people who know video, social media, mobile, coding. Propose a session and speak, or better, propose a session on what you want to learn, and see who rises to the challenge of assisting you. You can tune in on their twitter hashtag: #PCWM.

Okay, it turns out that Podcamp is $30 dollars, but that’s less than you’d pay for a day of parking some places. And  you get to hang out with the like of Morriss Partee, Lesley Lambert, Ron Miller, Stephen Sherlock, Christine Pilch Mancini, and Melinda Moses. Those are good people, and there’s a free after party. So there, hey, there’s the free.

Right now I’m speaking or teaching somewhere every week through July. I’m noticing that everywhere I go, someone has a release form to sign and and guy like this shooting video. Universities, private companies, even non-profits seem newly staffed and geared-up to make video a much bigger part of their publishing diet.  The net effect is that my visits with students are a bit less informal. When you sign a waiver it puts everything on the record. If you’re seeing this, especially 45 seconds before you walk on, considera.) marketing that its signed under duress, or b.) adding a demand to the waiver release they give you, something simple such as that you get unlimited use copy the recording they make.

After all, if they’re getting you on a recording, you should get it too? While many of these are never used, or snipped to illustrate key points on a highlights reel, you might want to make a reel of your own. Perpetuity is a long time, get a copy of yourself. And its superlatively arrogant to hand someone an agreement once they’re in a situation where refusting it would hurt their reputation and important relationships. So, get the video of yourself. Someone in it could be famous someday. ;>