Posted by admin on January 31st, 2009 in Communication, Community Involvement, Education, Internet Use

Why Go to Another Conference?

Good question.  In fact, I had to really convince myself that I was “geeky” enough to attend this one.

I did go and I’m glad I did.  The experience reminded me of the importance of mentoring.  Mentoring other women.  Mentoring young women and young men.  If you’re like me, I learn the best from other people (and the internet of course).  This conference was an “un” conference in that the attendees decided which subjects they wanted to discuss and/or learn about.  Each person posted their subject and assigned a room.  Everything was put on a huge schedule and people went from session to session based on their interests.

It sounds dis-organized and a little crazy but it worked and for the most part everyone attended the sessions they were interested in.  I not only learned some things about social media, Wordpress, identity theft, password development and money management, but I met lots of interesting women. I was introduced to “12 sec. t.v.” while there and I’m going to make it a regular feature on this blog.  It will be my opportunity to give my “12 seconds” on something without writing an entire post.

When I think about how our kids learn in schools, I think what  a great idea it would be to have a “un”conference for teens.  On a small scale of course.  Maybe through their school (it would be sheer chaos otherwise).

This experience has made me think about what mentoring really is.  It doesn’t have to mean a major commitment in time, it could be 1 small conversation  between two people wherein 1 conveys information that is helpful OR inspires someone.  I had several of those moments this week-end and I’m proud to say I was able to inspire at least one person to view their marketing problem in a new light.  Sometimes it just takes another person (whose not close to the situation) to put a different spin on a difficulty.  And, I can honestly say I came away with many Aha! moments that were inspired by something someone said to me or I heard in a session.

You can bet I won’t hesitate to attend next year.  Geek or no geek.