CREATEsouth Recap

This past Saturday, I attended a local creativity/technology/blogging conference called CREATEsouth. The conference is in it's third year, and this was my second year attending. Wow. What a great time!

I was excited to reconnect with friends made at last year's event, as well as meet new folks whom I've met on Twitter. And all the techy-geekiness, oh my!

I took most of my notes while tweeting, but here is a brief recap of what I took away from the day.

~ Not only is CREATEsouth a creative conference, it's also a people conference. (from Dave Slusher)

~ Tee Morris shared in his keynote address that 2009 was The Breakout Year for Social Media but that 2010 is The Year of Credibility. It doesn't matter how many Twitter followers or Facebook friends you have. What matters is the quality of relationship.

~ Social media is now a part of how we live our lives. The Library of Congress acknowledged that when they started archiving all tweets.

~ We were all encouraged to work on our elevator pitch, and even had time to share with the whole group (for the brave!).

~ Starting a project without goals doesn't lead anywhere. (@mightymur who gave the second keynote)

~ Our goals need to be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time

A huge take-away for me was the encouragement to be creative and to not be afraid to partner with others who have complimentary strengths. That's huge.

I've felt so uncreative and distracted lately, searching for my blogging mojo again. I feel creative and energized after Saturday's conference. I have the glimmer of a business idea that I have started working on, starting with learning a few new techy skillz. My goal is to stretch myself, but also to partner with others.

Which is really cool when I think back to WHY I started this blog 2 1/2 years ago. Because I strongly believe that life is not a Do-It-Yourself project. We need each other. No matter how good my ideas are, I can't bring them to fruition by closeting myself away. I am looking forward to the creative energy that comes from working with a great team. I don't know who will be on my team, but I do know it will be great!

Thanks, CREATEsouth for the wonderful day and inspiration!