Yesterday was the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit 2009 called “Migrate” and it was not only incredibly well done, but there were over 1,000 attendees, the largest turnout for an event of this type I’ve yet seen in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
The Minnov8 team was there with a booth and a plan to liveblog the event, archived here in case you missed either the event or the liveblogging.
Before I continue, accolades are due to the vision of the MIMA board and the flawless execution of the event by Jen Kane and team at KaneConsulting. The only downside — outside of their control — was the unfortunate technical issues with Wifi which made our ability to liveblog the event one of the biggest challenges we’ve faced as a team covering a live event like this one (we had to use our iPhones and the intermittent connections to upload what turned out to be minimal content for your viewing).
We were incredibly pleased to have been the media partner for MIMA at this event and want to thank the board, staff and Jen Kane for
Reactions to the sessions were mixed based on the people I talked with: those who are experienced in interactive marketing and social media found many of the sessions to be quite basic and somewhat redundant (same stories heard over-n-over again like Dominos, Motrin Moms, Dell Hell, et al), while others with less experience absolutely found the sessions enlightening and filled with new information. One attendee from a Fortune 100 company said to me during a break, “I know most of what was said in (session name), but three things were presented that turned out to be completely new information, and my criteria for a successful event is learning ONE new thing in each session I attend. On that count alone, MIMA was a resounding success for me.” I felt the same way and, frankly, am eager to view the videos of sessions I missed and access the slide decks of the presenters since there is so much value that was delivered at MIMA Summit.
The Minnov8 team has yet to process the event in full, but a few thoughts come forth: it would be useful to understand specifically who attends, what their level of experience is, what organizations they work for and so on. In addition, it would be fantastic to see significantly more vendor attendance with booths and, possibly, a two-day event in order to ensure that people had time to migrate through the a vendor exposition. I know I’d hoped to hear A LOT more about analytics software and would’ve loved to have had a chance to talk in depth with makers of analytics software and services.
As always at these events, the people are what matter. It sure was fun to see many of the same folks as at other events and to meet new ones. After the jump are two things from Minnov8 team member Graeme Thickins you will find interesting and useful. … [Read More…]
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No doubt, the Minnov8 Gang is stoked about the upcoming 
Wait there’s more. MIMA created “conference personas,” each with a pre-configured schedule based on an area of interest. You can chose a “persona chip” and be Social Media Maggie, Suzy Search, Email Ian, Mobile Mack, Victor Video, or Brady Branding. (Sorry, no Pete Propeller-Head.) You’ll then get an itinerary of sessions related to that area of interest. “Because Surface sees and interacts with objects, guests will be able to place their conference persona chip onto the Surface screen to trigger different types of personalized digital responses, and then the transfer of digital content to their mobile devices,” explains the M Group’s Janessa Meyer.
No, wait! There’s even more. MIMA is even using individual tags that are embedded with the URL to each of the conference speakers’ social networking site of choice. These tags are printed on the conference signage corresponding with that speaker’s session. Using the Microsoft 
There has been much discussion about the new emphasis on the online and social media policies of our new administration. As Minnov8’s Steve Borsch 
In a world that is shifting from serial and linear processes (which can be easily outsourced) to one rapidly moving toward higher value being created by those people who can deal with the flood of information and ideas coming at us in parallel by making new associations, any of us who care about our kids and the next generation of workers and leaders intuitively understands the value of mentoring. This past weekend’s 
We strive to deliver a high value podcast at an affordable price (um…that would be free?) and this week’s show is no exception as it’s packed with topics.
UnSummit, the spontaneous tech marketing unconference spawned as an alternative to the sold-out MIMA Summit last October has set the date for their next event as Saturday, March 7, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Minneapolis Central Library.