Amanda Ingle Profound findings can come from the unknown. Unsummit4 was full of information, innovation and intelligence from many different subject matter experts. With the day packed full of amazing sessions, it was hard to boil it down to what I wanted to do. Being a social media nerd, I found most of my time spent learning about new ‘best practices.’…  UnSummit4 Brief

Interactive Snack (Vanessa Bright):  Unsummit – a free “unconference” that in my opinion is better than some of “regular” conferences – attendees and presenters are driven by passion for our beloved interactive marketing. Regular conferences, I must admit, typically have wider variety of unhealthy food However, food for thoughts that unsummit provides is absolutely irresistible…  Unsummit – 4

blog.brainstormoverload (Todd Zerger) By all accounts UnSummit 5 (sic) was a success. Personally, I met some great people and enjoyed many great conversations including “Ensuring Relevance With Good Design” hosted by Circadian, “Minnesota Start-up Culture” hosted by Jeff Pesek, and “Escaping Wage Slavery” hosted by Don Ball. My favorite presentation however was by an old friend. Rohn Jay Miller hit a home run with “The 25 Minute MBA: How To Anchor Projects in Real Business Success” which he has made available on SlideShare… UnSummit Update 

Nick Rodriguez Today I had the honor of attending UnSummit4. It was the first time that I have ever been to any kind of conference or unconference for that matter. I really had no idea what to expect or what was going to happen. What I discovered was a community here in the Twin Cities that was extremely helpful in every level of business and social media. It was nothing short of amazing!…  Today

Minnov8 Podcast Innovation is Accelerating

Presentations:

Patrick Rhone’s Practical Opacity
Rohn Jay Miller’s The 25 Minute MBA
Arik Hanson’s Feeding the Blog Beast
Don Ball’s Escaping Wage Slavery 
Kate Masonna Hindes’ The Art of Being Fun-sized

Flickr photos tagged Unsummit

Twitter on Unsummit

Solve for x: Call for problems

“If there was a problem yo I’ll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it”
-Robert Van Winkle

This is our fourth UnSummit, the unique unconference answer to local technology, interactive marketing events. We usually formulate a theme to help contributers think about how to approach UnSummit. “Hacking the Recession” and “What’s Next?” were past themes where we looked to you, our community for ideas. This year with Solve for x, we’re looking for problems. We’d like you to bring us your problems and together, as a community, we’ll brainstorm to solve for x where x= your problem.

So in the comments below, tell us about your unique problem (and whether or not you’d be interested in facilitating that discussion) and we’ll get to work on the schedule. As usual there will be room for additions, so you may also bring your ideas, problems, and discussions on June 26th. So tell us. What is your x?

Photo: der_makabere

We, the organizers, of this quaint little event could not be more pleased with the outcomes. One hundred fifty participants, great sponsors, great conversations, and lots of feedback.

Here’s a sampling:

• The Minnov8 gang liveblogged the event using Scribble Live (10/10)
• Valerie Rigsbee lists Entrepreneurial tools from the #unsummit session with Don Ball (10/10)
• Kirk Horsted mused about unplugging some more (10/11)
• Vanessa Bright reviews Unsummit – Interactive Marketing Un-conference (10/11)
• Tim Bursch shared his Top 5 Takeaways from Unsummit3 (10/11)
• Paul Jahn shared his impressions of Jake Nyberg’s session and a trip to the mall (10/11)
• Tyler Hayes catches several video interviews (10/11)
• Conner McCall ponders the cocktail question post Unsummit (10/12)
• Shelley Sanders offers her UnSummit3: UnTop10 (10/12)
• Amy Bryant gives us a parable about Mima and Una (10/13)
• Inspired by an UnSummit session, Steve Borsch shares How your company can achieve a champagne presence on a beer budget on MinnPost (10/13)
• Clockwork Active Media Systems praised our dancing with So You Think You Can Dance? (10/13)
• Remain Comm turns in an Unsummit wrap-up video on YouTube (10/14)
• Phil Wilson posits Was Unsummit Perfect? on the Minnov8 blog (10/15)

Lots of photos were also taken (video of sessions to follow) such as Teresa Boardman’s. Other UnSummit photo sets:

• Mykl Roventine
• Kevin Knodl
• LocalMN

Not to mention your tweets…

Thank you for helping us document and debrief! Did I miss your post? Please add it in the comments.

Flickr photo by sea turtle

MY FAVORITE ACRONYM IS AAAAA…ASSOCIATION FOR THE ABOLITION OF ABSURD ABBREVIATIONS & ASENINE ACRONYMS. WHAT’S YOURS?

WHICH IS WORSE: A BROKEN COMPUTER OR A BROKEN FRIDGE?

THE WASHINGTON POST SAYS 8.5% OF KIDS ARE BEHAVIORALLY ADDICTED TO THEIR DIGITALIA. CAN YOU BE ADDICTED? WHAT WOULD DIGITAL DETOX LOOK LIKE?

WHEN YOU GO ON VACATION OR A BIG BREAKAWAY, HOW DO YOUR SOCIAL-MEDIA HABITS CHANGE?

IF YOU USE BLUETOOTH DEVICES TOO LONG, WILL YOU GET BLUE TEETH?

WILL FACEBOOK, TWITTER & THE REST LAST? WHAT’S NEXT?

DO DIGITAL TOOLS AND GADGETS FREE UP TIME FOR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS—OR TAKE TIME AWAY FROM THEM?

HOW DOES THIS THIS STAT FROM NIELSEN MAKE YOU FEEL: 30% OF IN-HOME ON-LINE ACTIVITY TAKES PLACE WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY WATCHING TV.

PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS STAT: FAMILY TIME WENT DOWN 28% FROM A YEAR AGO…DURING THE TIME THAT FACEBOOK WENT FROM 100 MILLION TO 200 MILLION USERS.

WHEN HAVING BEER WITH FRIENDS AND ARGUING ABOUT, SAY, WHEN THE BEATLES BROKE UP, IS IT COOL TO BLUNT THE CHAT AND GET THE ANSWER VIA YOUR PDA?

PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS QUOTE FROM HUFFPOST BLOGGER ARTHUR ROSENFELD: “BEING ABLE TO DISCONNECT HAS BECOME THE STATUS SYMBOL THAT HIGH-TECH CONNECTION FORMERLY WAS.”

>>>>>WHICH IS BETTER: THE UNSUMMIT OR SUMMIT BEER?

Digital signage, design

Jeremy Gavin talks about how you can turn your consulting skills into your own business

The Dream
Quality vs. Quantity- how can you work on something to make it better
Flexible work life (hasn’t happened yet, but the dream)
The customer is so #$%# wrong

Defining a product
Example: Feeds for digital signage
Can Brad sell it? (a friend who Jeremy has always wanted to work with) He asks, Is there anything I can sell?
• Brand
• Intellectual Property
• Software
• Widget
• Web App
• Unique Process
• Web App
• Contracts

www.tinyurl.com/UST-fast-track

Running the Show
Salespeople suck…. Until you have a product to sell
Advertise
How will you fund it?

Local Examples:
• Developer Marketing Services
• InSite Software
• Weather Nation
• Spacecrafting
• Screenfeed
• MNCreativeSource
• Convergent Retirement Solutions

Horsted opened with the call to worship, “Join me in the open your PowerBook to the hymn titled What a Friend We Have in Facebook” We talked about the positives and negatives of being plugged in to social networks. We hashed out the abbreviations that mire our lives. Is reading in decline? Many hands went up when asked if people read less print. Don Ball discussed the consumer experience of the book store. Instapaper, Readability were suggested by Paul Carroll as tools to read online with less distraction.

Other questions:

Do gadgets save time or prevent us from getting things done?

Is family time broccoli and going online Coca-cola?

Is today a good time to judge what technology use is like or are we still in an experimental phase?

Why do we privilege online media? Maybe social networking is enough?

What happened to the handwritten note? Seems like a good way to stand out…

Is it the more screens the better? Is television interactive enough? Television as real time media during the election or sports… Watching the Twins, while ranting on a blog, and reading espn.com

What about vacation? How connected are you? I personally post photos during vacations. Kirk also tries to capture his experience –> but doesn’t research, chat with friends, do anything that hinders the experience. Writing also makes him more aware. He also responds to comments.

Do you cheat at online scrabble? Search for trivial answers while at a dinner party?

How do you encourage kids to unplug?

Kirk believes tweeting is for the birds. He’d rather see us unplug. He suggests we use 11 ways to avoid. Included: Minimize cell phone driving. No tech in the  bathroom. Intentionally leave your cell phone behind. Create digi-free zones- times, places… Separate work and home addresses

According to February 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service:

More than 10 billion videos were viewed online in the U.S. in February, a 66 percent year-over-year leap from the previous February.
YouTube has gained even more market share, rising to 35.4 percent of videos consumed in the month. And Google sites’ 81.8 million unique viewers came to the site an average of 109.4 minutes over the course of the month
The average U.S. online video viewer consumed 75 videos in February.
72.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in February.

Realm of false perceptions: talking traditional television/ production folks into interactive and web also tough. The difference with traditional video/ television production and new media? Production company can be part of the creative process. Let’s look at what worked and what isn’t working. The key is openness about outcomes. Upside of low budget is investment is lower, but outcome could be stronger.

Role of Mobile- Urban Spoon iphone application; Movielens.org

Disruptive nature of online video and social media? Jake defines as bothering the user. Beauty of the web is it isn’t disruptive. Ads can ignored. Have to navigate to get to savethewalls.org

Conclusion: We don’t know where it is going but we’re going there fast.