Scott Porad

#140conf Recap Week: Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

Interestingly, Twitter changed a lot in the time between when Jeff Pulver invited me to speak at #140conf and when I actually gave my presentation.  I wouldn’t quite say it hit the mainstream, but it went from underground to mainstream visibility, from a code word to a phrase in the lexicon.  My 93 year old grandfather has heard of Twitter now (although he doesn’t have a clue as to what it is).  More succinctly put: @oprah.  Enough said.

Twitter is the cutting edge of social media, and it’s only in an embryonic state.  One of the most stunning statistics I heard while at the conference was that all the tweets combined only add up to something like 1% of all text messages sent in the US.  And text messaging is by no means ubiquitous just yet.

That fact by itself was enough to make the #140conf important: nobody quite knows what Twitter means to our world just yet, and so it is valuable for leaders in the community to connect and exchange ideas.  While I am grateful for having had the opportunity to share my views, I am more grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of what has been referred to as The Davos of Twitter.

And that’s why #140conf was important: listening to the ideas, and meeting the people…too many amazing people to list without forgetting someone!  (Good news! You can listen to them all as well: the video-on-demand for the conference is available here.)  Ultimately, this is why conferences are important and why I enjoy attending them so much.  At each I meet people who’s intelligence and insight leaves me both humbled and inspired to work harder when I return home.

Finally, my recap will be incomplete without recognizing the hard-work and effort of Jeff Pulver.  Jeff has been on the leading edge of technology for quite some time, and while I had yet to attend one of his conferences, I jumped at the opportunity to do so because the word on the street was that his were simply la creme de la creme.  This is true; it was small and intimate, and the format led to genuine exchange of ideas as opposed to boring keynotes.  Jeff, thank you for putting on a great event!