High on Hashtags

Well, it’s over and the verdict is: #LMA10 rocked!

I read with interest the post by my good friend Heather Milligan at the Legal Water Cooler Blog about the Legal Marketing Association 2010 Annual Conference and its strong social media component. Now, Heather and I are are true believers and maybe a little bit fanatical, but her story about Laura Gutierrez from Minnesota illustrates an important point about the richness of social media experience.

I was with Heather and 600 other friends at the Hyatt Regency Denver Convention Center for the last three days. The conference certainly had its social media presentations, Heather, Jayne Navarre and I led one ourselves. But even more present was the community of users through Twitter, Facebook and the other broadcast channels. Anyone who participated in the organized Twitter streams (thanks to Heather for spearheading this, and for the always effervescent Nancy Myrland for being our chief cheerleader and Twitter evangelist) and who then heard the live conversations FOLLOW the tweets, knows how many people watched the #LMA10 hashtag and took advantage of being informed about sessions they couldn’t physically attend.

And we can’t ignore Heather’s point about the non-local listeners. They have been included for the last two years by virtue of the virtual “note taking” by the Twitter reporters in the sessions. Last year’s spontaneous stream took on an even richer dimension this year through its intentional coverage.

I also loved Gina Rubel’s post about the way social media had transformed her experience at the LMA conference. Boy, am I ever sorry that I missed the intimate dinner of tweet leaders at Roija after the swell Tweet-up organized by Nancy and sponsored by Hermann Communications, JD Supra, Leadership for Lawyers and LexBlog. Classy and convivial colleagues!!!

There’s a complete transcript of the #LMA10 hashtag stream here (thanks to Adrian Lurrsen, @JDTwitt, whose retweet of Lindsey Griffith and Heather’s archive URL I saw today). Go there, listen in, be there. Let me know what you learn.