By Amy Turner, The Community Roundtable
This time of year is always busy for us here at The Community Roundtable as we gear up for conference season. The relaxed days of summer are long gone and we turn into road warriors with a jam-packed schedule of conferences, events and workshops.
Group shot from TheCR Connect West in January 2016.
As we look ahead to the events we are hosting and presenting at over the next two months (including TheCR Connect!), it’s helpful to take a step back and reflect on our insights and learnings from events and conferences attended in the past. Because as we all know, it’s so crucial to step away from our computers, online networks and virtual connections every once and while to have meaningful, personal and engaging conversations with each other.
This week’s #throwbackthursday post focuses on events, highlighting key insights and observations learned from our journeys over the years.
- Emergent Learning in Networks and at Conferences – For several years during the 2000’s online community professionals gathered together annually to share and learn from each other. Recognizing that online community practice continues to evolve, a group of Bay Area community managers felt the need to revive the unconference tradition to gather together online community and social media professionals to share their collective knowledge and real world experience to address today’s pressing topics.
- Community in Real Life – We were recently reminded about the power of taking online communities offline and this is an approach we strive to embrace here at TheCR. This short – but effective post – summarizes the important “how’s” and “why’s” of connecting in real life.
- Why Conversations Matter And How Things Need to Change to Support Them – Moderating and talking with panelists at a Gilbane Digital Content Conference gave Rachel some fascinating insight into where we are now and where things need to go to really support enterprise-wide conversations.
- To Event Or Not Event? – Learn about Jim’s love/hate relationship with planning events over the years. He’s experienced first-hand how exhilarating it can feel when it all comes together and the vendors, speakers and attendees start connecting on the show floor and in the conference rooms. But the internet came along and changed the game.
- For TheCR Network Eyes Only – Live Internal Event Blogging and Engagement Tactics – Are you a member of TheCR Network? Check out this exclusive discussion thread inside the Network about how to live blog and engage with employees back in the office or the field while you’re onsite at an event.
Want even more #throwbackthursday action? Check out all our throwback posts!
