140 Conference Review

Last week I had the priveledge of attending my first 140 conference.  First, let me just say that Jeff Pulver knows how to put on an event.  I have been to plenty of conferences and this one was jam packed with great speakers at a fast pace.  There were celebrity speakers, such as Ivanka Trump, Donny Deutsch, Miss America, and Ann Curry.  Overall, I met a lot of great people and heard a lot of great speakers, here are some of my highlights, I have included links to their video sessions.

After Miss America introduced Jeff, he gave a brief explanation of what the 140 conference is all about and how it came about.  The Real-Time News Gathering session was very interesting to find out how news stations were using Twitter to find up to date information about current events.  It was discussed how Twitter lists were used during the Ft. Hood tragedy.  For anybody that is in the press or into being the first one to break a story, then I suggest watching this 15 minute session.

Next up was one of the best sessions of the day, in fact, the only one to receive a standing ovation.  Chris Lehmann gave a talk about social media and education.  Not only did he explain the benefits of it, he went into detail about the downfalls of our education system of today.  One example that he used was that when kids get out of school, they come running out of the doors reaching into their pockets or backpacks searching for their phones or iTouch or iPad to use it as soon as possible because it is banned in the schools.  Why ban the items that students use the most?  Why not use them to help in their education?  Why?  Because teachers want to pretend that these items don’t exist and that they are not going to help the students on the state assessment test and the teachers / schools will get bad grades.  He said that todays schools are “more of a training, rather than education”.  Please watch this video, it is a great session.

Soon after that was the “celebrity” half hour if you will.  First up was Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO, Kodak.  He has been on Celebrity Apprentice several times.  He spoke about how Kodak is using social media to promote their “Kodak Moment” campaign.  Donny Deutsch came on stage and discussed how he has used Twitter as well.  Finally, Ivanka Trump came out and was interviewed by Jeff Hayzlett about Celebrity Apprentice, her new book, using Twitter during the show and some other ways she uses social media.

If you want to laugh, watch this clip of Chris Weingarten.  I must warn you, put the children away first, it is filled with curse words.  He discusses the death of rock criticism in a very entertaining way.  Ann Curry then gave a good session.

The speaker that I was most anxious to see was Gary Vaynerchuk.  He did not disappoint.  He explained that direct messages are the best way to build a relationship with your customers.  It is more personal than an @ reply or mention.  Also, he was very passionate about the fact that people who say that you are not building real connections with people on Twitter need to shutup and go away!

You can find all the session videos here.
photo credit: David Berkowitz via photopin cc