RootsTech Day 1, Part 1

The first morning of RootsTech came early. 5:45 in my case. Did you know it's still completely dark at 7am in Salt Lake City? Messes with my head. Anyway, I ran into Jill Ball in the elevator and we ended up having breakfast together.

After that we went to the Convention Center for our blogger tour of the exhibit hall before it opened to the public. I noticed right way that the RootsTech vendor area was bigger than last year.

Here are some photos. Just remember it was still closed to the public, which is why you don't see anyone.

A view down one aisle.

Bring your books for scanning and receive a digital file of them from FamilySearch.

The Demo Theater. Check out the furniture.

Story @ Home booth with conversation area.

There were many vendors I've never heard of in the hall. This could be because of the merge with the Story @ Home conference, or maybe there are just that many new products in the genealogy world. Either way, cool for family historians.

After the tour, we got reserved seats for the opening keynote. (I told you this Official Blogger thing was a sweet ride.) You can watch a recording of the keynote at the RootsTech website.

I won't go over the entire keynote, but I did notice some common themes. Collaboration was mentioned often. So was the concept storytelling in family history. 

The "new" genealogist is nothing like the rabid genealogist many of us resemble. They have different purposes, intentions, perspectives and attention spans. The keynotes reflected that. Do watch them if you can. Especially Syd Lieberman's talk. It was fabulous.

I did a lot of talking and networking on day 1. I sought out Stories to Tell Books as I planned. I spent way too much time at the Demo Theater, but it was interesting to see all these genealogy products and the chairs were comfortable. In an hour at the Demo Theater, I learned as much as I would in a cramped session. I take learning opportunities where I can, especially when leather furniture and free popcorn are involved.

In the afternoon, I went to a developer session....and I followed along just fine. It was "Genealogy Industry Web 2.0 Report Card" by Tammy A. Hepps, overall winner of the RootsTech developer's challenge and creator of Treelines.com. 

I did more networking and schmoozing after that, then called it a day in the convention center. I had a fun evening, but that's a story for another time.