[Read part 1 here]
After lunch, attendees had the choice between concurrent sessions. There were two tracks of three sessions each. Like last year, we were asked to refrain from using Twitter (or "Tweetering" as one person said). Also like last year, I've opted not to describe the sessions on my blog. I prefer to focus my time and attention on genealogy groups and events who are more open to the use of social media in conference settings. I apologize to the speakers who won't get the publicity and to my readers who won't benefit from knowing the experience of attending such sessions.
I then had a quick dinner in the hotel bar with Thomas MacEntee and Melissa Corley.
The APG round table was held from 7-9pm. "Online presence" was the topic, this time presented in panel format. Nobody told me I couldn't "tweeter" in this session, so I am glad I could describe this event to you. The panelists were Drew Smith, D. Joshua Taylor, Kathleen Hinckley (top APG person), Crista Cowan (speaking on Ancestry's Expert Connect) and Thomas MacEntee (the YAY BLOGS cheerleader).
Each member of the panel spoke for about 7 minutes, then fielded questions from the audience. Many people were interested in blogs and that made me happy. There were several a-ha moments as some attendees learned that you can schedule tweets, status updates and blog posts for future release. I really liked the vibe of this session and loved the back-and-forth dialog. Thank you to all the panelists.
After the round table, we broke as a group and went back to our respective hotel rooms for the inevitable crash.
And that, my friends, is the APG PMC in a nutshell.
I already ranted on the Twitter thing on someone else's blog, so I won't recreate the entire thing here, other than to say:
ReplyDeleteIt's ironic that this is a conference where you're supposed to take business advice from the speakers, but whoever is in charge doesn't believe in free advertising.
Hopefully they're all in the Yellow Pages though. Because I hear that's really important.
Hopefully those who heard the "Online Presence" discussion will start to investigate and understand how these things work, so that we don't have this same issue next year.
Coincidentally, I've been catching up on a several-month backlog of the APG and other mailing lists. Between this no-Twitter thing and that, I'm wondering if maybe I'm in the wrong crowd. I have very little patience with this stuff.