Here’s a summary of Day 1 at the 140 Twitter Conference.

Day 1 summary at 140TC in Los Angeles, CA – Tuesday, September 22, 2009

My initial thoughts and feelings as we drove to the Skirball Cultural Center in LA.

• Excited about learning more about Twitter
• Looking forward to networking
• Anxious to listen to a few celebrities whether it be online celebrities like Guy Kawasaki or “real” celebrities like Tony Hawk
• Not looking forward to hearing other lame Twitter terms, one of which was twitterverse…wtf?

I wasn’t sure what to expect because I had never attended a conference for an employer before.  As a representative of Marketwire as its Search Marketing and Social Media Specialist, I was ready to set up my own private section in the audience.  What is the private section you ask?  Imagine this…. I am at the back of the audience, to the right of me is my laptop all wi-fi’ed up and ready to go along with the camcorder/camera.  To the left is my ipod touch and cell phone in case the Wi-Fi goes down (and it did).   Like I said, I had my own private section so I can tweet live, take pictures and videos, and even had backup systems (phone, ipod) running in case the laptop stopped working.  Now that I think about it…I probably looked like a dork…d’oh.  Lesson learned.

Before lunch:

• Demo session on Twalkin – conferencing ability on Twitter
  Innovative tool, but the guy presenting was an awful public speaker.  Instead of the 1/2 hour that should have been extremely interesting, after I heard “conferencing for Twitter” I then focused on why the heck Wi-Fi wasn’t working for me (apparently along with the entire audience).  You know that feeling when you watch an awards show (not that I watch any in my spare time) and you start squirming because you know they’re nervous as hell, but they have to keep talking.  Imagine that times 10.
• Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter
  A big improvement on the speaking part.  Bravo.  Anyway, Biz talked about the origins of Twitter and some real life examples of how Twitter is a tool for instantaneous communication.  Examples included earthquakes and other natural disasters.
• Twitter strategies as it relates to Brand Management and Media Integration
  Brad Nelson, Mari Smith, Mike Prasad, Mark Suster, Andrew Blair, and moderator Guy Kawasaki talked about using Twitter for brands.  They discussed everything from who manages the corporate account (in Starbucks’ case, just one person) to what you do when you get attacked on Twitter to how to use Twitter effectively for your company.
  The 2nd panel talked about media integration strategies and how certain tools and techniques like Tweet Deck can vastly improve monitoring and interacting.  This panel was pretty useless, which is probably why they cut it short for the special address from Gavin Newsom.
• Special address from Gavin Newsom – major of San Francisco
  I really couldn’t imagine how/why Newsom was relevant, but after hearing him speak…pretty innovative for a politician, almost Barack Obama-esque when it comes to embracing social media.

After lunch:

• Comedy panel
  Absolutely hilarious.  The best and most entertaining of any panel.  Following this group was not going to be an easy task and it certainly showed.  Tucker Max, Chris Hardwick, Loni Love, and surprise guest The Iron Sheik (yes, the WWF/WWE guy) made the crowd literally laugh out loud.   Didn’t learn anything, but damn it was funny.
• Gaming panel
  Like I mentioned earlier, it was going to be tough to follow the comedy panel and it certainly showed.  One guy tried to be funny and it was just bad.  Even worse is that the topics they were covering specifically in regards to virtual gaming and bringing in revenue didn’t apply to 99% of the audience.  Let’s just say the place downgraded from “packed house” to “there’s free donuts outside! hurry” or in other words for those that didn’t get my lame joke, it emptied quickly.
• Music panel
  This panel included recording artists Chamillionaire and Tyrese along with Curt Smith of Tears for Fears (of “Mad World” fame – there have been a gazillion other remakes that I believe are far superior to the original), Mark Nubar (keyboardist for rock band Hypnogaja), Andrew Blair, and Jeff Yasuda (CEO of blip.fm).  Key takeaway from this panel was that Chamillionaire is an extremely intelligent business man.  His marketing tactics and his understanding of how to use Twitter effectively was an eye opener.  A lot of the chit chat I heard was how Chamillionaire really shed the stereotype of rappers because of how well and intelligently he spoke.  He was clearly the standout of this panel.  Oh and I have to mention the clever tweets about him like (cue music), “we see him rollin’, he’s tweetin’…” (end music).
• Celebrity panel
  Tony Hawk, Tyrese, LeVar Burton, and Mark Geragos showed up for this panel moderated by Dr. Drew.  This was the last session of Day 1 and was the most surprising of all the sessions.  The insights of Tony Hawk, Tyrese and LeVar were more than I could have asked for.  Like many sessions of the day, it might not necessarily help with your own Twitter account especially if you manage the account for a company, but listening to their take on Twitter and how they manage effectively was interesting.

The sessions ended and my colleague and I headed out.  I had to miss the Ad.ly launch party with special guest Pee Wee Herman due to a luggage/airline issue.  I would have traded 1/2 the sessions to attend the launch party.  Oh well.  Who would have thunk sitting on a semi-comfortable chair eating good food and listening to people talk for hours upon hours would take so much out of you.  Well, I was exhausted and unfortunately didn’t get to bed until 3AM due to the aforementioned luggage/airline issue.

Check out Summary of Day 2 at the Los Angeles 140 Twitter Conference.

Check out Notable Quotes of Day 1 and Notable Quotes of Day 2.