A couple of years ago I and a number of amazing people put on a conference in Colorado called the Thin Air Summit. At the time what we now call social media or online journalism or citizen journalism was still using the moniker “New Media”. At this conference we talked about what this new media is, how to use it, how to create it, and what its potential was. The conference was a great success. Our goals, in addition to having conference that was of value to the attendees, was three part:
- Have a tech/social media conference in Colorado
- Help connect the local social media people so they can build on the local resources (instead of finding locals by going to a conference in LA).
- Raise the visibility of Colorado in the tech/new media world.
Since then there have been many conferences (and unconferences) in Colorado on social media topics. Sometimes only a little push is needed to open the floodgates. The people who attended the conference got a lot of meeting other people with like interests in the area. Networking and connections were made. Additionally Colorado, which was already a huge (if somewhat hidden) force in tech and social media has become increasingly visible.
Each year I ponder if there will be a Thin Air Summit II, and thus far the pieces haven’t come into place – many of the original people people who made the first one possible have been busy with other projects, and the timing hasn’t seemed right. However, I was recently encouraged when I read the Wikipedia article on TED, and it mentioned that there was a 6 year hiatus between the first TED and the annual TED that started in 1990. In the mean time, I will leave you with my closing remarks from The Thin Air Summit ’08.
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