TheCR on the Road: Sitrion Collective and Lithium LiNC

By Shannon DiGregorio Abram, Relationship Manager at The Community Roundtable.

Today Rachel and I are heading to Orlando for Collective 2014, and next week Jim, Hillary and Jillian will trek to the West Coast and visit San Francisco for Lithium’s LiNC. It’s exciting to get some of our team out on the road to meet with members, connect with other community professionals and learn about how community is advancing.

I’m thrilled to be attending Collective – and not just to get back into the land of mouse ears and alligators! There are a lot of interesting sessions, including Tuesday’s keynote: Creating Cultures that Work.  Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant, authors of Humanize, are presenting this session focused on better understanding how today’s pressures are demanding important changes in the way we lead and manage our associations – I can’t wait to listen in. There is also a hackathon! While I won’t personally be hacking anything I think the idea of connecting customers with product developers this way is very innovative. I’m excited to see what they come up with.

Rachel is presenting Wednesday’s keynote ” The Networked Organization – Organizing for Complexity and Emergence.  She’ll dive into the very concept of an organization, and how it’s changing rapidly as trends like the collaborative economy start challenging more traditional ideas of a organization’s role in creating value.

I’ve never attended LiNC so I asked our resident Lithium expert, Jillian Bejtlich. She was nice enough to answer a few interview-style questions for me.

Jillian, what makes LiNC different than the typical customer conference?

LiNC is a unique conference in that there is truly something for everyone. You can be a brand new community manager, executive, or super techie – and still walk away with knowledge you can use immediately. And besides – the energy at LiNC is out of this world and seriously contagious.

That sounds great. So, what are you looking forward to most?

I love attending LiNC because it’s truly focused on communities that either use Lithium or are considering it. Everyone that attends is able to share and collaborate, so it’s a Lithium techie’s dream.

Are there any can’t miss sessions or events you’d recommend?

The sessions are broken up into some pretty specific tracks, and as usual – I’m torn on what to attend. It’s all going to be great, but I’m leaning towards the developer track which is promising some hands-on sessions. Other than that, be sure to attend the keynotes. They’re always mind blowing.