One of the things I love doing as a professor is attending and presenting conferences. Whether it is for research purposes, or even teaching, these events are very rewarding and inspiring for me as a professor and I share what I have taken away from these conferences with my students, fellow colleagues, and professors.
I am currently in the airport (as we speak) coming back from a conference in Austin, TX. SxSW Edu has been a bucket list item for me for a long time. I felt that if I was able to present here, I “made” it as a professor teaching social media. So, when I found out I was going to be part of a social media classroom panel a few months ago, I was absolutely thrilled and beyond excited!
This panel was organized and lead by Nick Bowman from WVU. Along with Nicole Kraft (The Ohio State University) and Carolyn Hank (University of Tennessee), we came together to come up with a professor panel talking about the perils and pearls of the social classroom.
We all were coming from not only different universities, but different background and perspectives of social media, which created one amazing experience to be a part of. How did we all meet you may ask? Well, Nick, Carolyn and I were all part of a UT Social Media Week panel last year, and we felt that we really worked well together and wanted to submit to SxSW. I met Nicole on Twitter (of course!) and she expressed an interest in collaborating on a panel. So, we combined the ideas and came up with this:
I have been to many conferences over the years, and I have to say, SxSW Edu has been one of my all-time favorites so far. There are so many things I have taken away so far as I write this blog post from the Austin airport waiting my flight back to Louisville.
Here are some of the major takeaways from SxSWEdu and why all professors who use/teach/practice social media, they not only need to go to this conference and present, but they have to:
- Seeing in real-time your immediate impact on the audience: We had a hashtag for our panel (#SocialProf) and this completely made the panel interactive and engaging. We were all following, answering, and engaging the audience before, during, and even after the panel. It was awesome!
- Broad reach of applications for insights: Most of the time, we see our work being shared and discussed at academic conferences – mostly among academics. This is one reason why I love conferences like ICRC and the Reputation Institute where we are able to share what we are doing with fellow practitioners. At SxSW Edu, you are able to do all of these things, and also interact with teachers at all levels. We were able to share our social media tips and assignments with teachers who are working with children as young as kindergarten. Wow.
- Speakers are treated like rockstars from start to finish: We had a green room and a red carpet opportunity here at the conference. We were escorted and taken care of while waiting for our panel to start. Where else – especially for academics – do you get this treatment? The answer is not many places. The opportunities to network, try out new tools and see what others are doing as part of the classroom were all amazing and inspiring to be a part of for these last few days.
- Got a chance to experiment and test out a new platform as a professor: I have been active on a lot of different platforms, but this was the first conference where I not only used FB, Twitter, and Instagram to share my experiences, but I also used Snapchat. My social media class is doing a Snapchat assignment this week, and I thought – well, I should walk the walk when it comes to utilizing a tool to tell a story myself!
- Cost of presenting at SxSW Edu: If you have a panel accepted and you are a speaker, you do NOT have to pay the registration fee. You just have to get there and stay at a hotel. That’s a big point to highlight especially if you are looking at the investment of which conference to go to.
- Meeting up with friends IRL: I was super excited to see Kirsten Bailey (Hootsuite) again at SxSW, and another huge highlight for me was to finally meet Chris Kerns (data analyst for Spredfast and author of Trendology) as well. These two professionals are leaders in the area and I was excited to have the chance to meet up with both of them while I was in Austin.
In summary, SxSW Edu was truly amazing and a wonderful experience for me. I was able to share with others what I was doing in my social media class at UofL as well as make a difference for those that attended. That was awesome and extremely rewarding for me. Special thanks to Nick, Nicole, and Carolyn for allowing me to be part of this amazing panel. This has been truly a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. Thank you!
So, if you are thinking about weighing in the cost of going/presenting at conferences, this is one I would strongly recommend.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
