Digital Summit 2011 in Atlanta is a Wrap!

The 2011 Digital Summit in Atlanta has wrapped and overall it was a great time. There certainly were some hits and misses with the presentations but all things considered the hits outweighed the misses and that’s all you can really ask for.

Being from NYC and still very new to the digital scene here in Atlanta I noticed some distinct differences between the social media communities. New York City is always moving and people are always looking for hot new companies coming out of the tech sector. If you have a new technology that you are actively building and is considered in stealth mode there is a good chance somebody is going to find out about it or already knows about it. In NYC you never have to look very far or hard to find a group of entrepreneurs, social media junkies and tech geeks getting together to chat about their passion.  In Atlanta, you have to really go out and find these scenes to become involved.  But, let me tell you, Atlanta is connected.

Atlanta has a very large and robust social media networking scene with some very passionate and bright minds in the game. It was a pleasure getting to meet many of you face to face for the first time and learning about some of the exciting things that you all are doing. I am certainly looking forward to collaborating with all of you at some point on some very awesome social media initiatives.

Digital Summit 2011 had Gary Vaynerchuk as its keynote presentation and he delivered with a bang. That dude is seriously amazing, if you ever get the chance to listen to him speak I seriously suggest that you do, you will be amped beyond belief when he is through and if you’re not you have a great career ahead of you as care taker in a funeral home.

James Andrews the founder of Social People, man that cat is really captivating. He is a very sharp guy who used to work in the record business so he knows a thing or two about making your brand famous, it was great listening to his insight on reputation management.

Debbie Curtis-Magley from UPS shared some insight on social media defense, what to do when crises erupts from social media. It was too bad that the Sony Playstation people where not here to listen to her speak as they surely could of learned how to properly handle a crises when disaster strikes your brand.

Erika Brookes from Vitrue did a fantastic job sharing her top ten social media trends which I found quite valuable. I totally expected this to be all about how Vitrue can help your brand and be just one giant sales pitch but it was not at all, very informative and insightful. Kudos Vitrue!

The keynote lunch panel was easily the most entertaining portion of the conference. Dallas Lawrence of Burson-Marsteller and Christine Cook of The Daily bantering back and forth on the paywall for news discussion was priceless. Christine believes people should have to pay for “good” news journalism and content while Dallas believes that model will never fly. The Digital Summit #DSum11 hash tag feed was flying as spectators chatted amongst each other about these issues; it’s fair to say that 98% of those in attendance side with Dallas Lawrence on these issues.

The speakers were great and the people I met were equally as awesome, thanks to everyone involved and I look forward to engaging with you all again very soon!