So Lindy and I got back late last night from NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, which was, of course totally intense.
We’d never been before (and were able to find lots of others who hadn't either, creating another layer of collective newbie experience (awesome!))... We were able to meet a whole ton of cool people IRL who we had gotten to know online, which was, as always, truly incredible... We met a bunch of brand new folks too, not least some amazing socmed/nonprofit experts we follow all across the social web... We recruited at least 8 people to YAP.... We hung out with an awesome DC contingent... We designed and presented a session on using social media to energize face to face events that went really well (and was recorded live, so we’ll let you know details for how to get the recording if you were not able to watch it at the time)...
Overall, we got a good sense of the great things happening in the nonprofit space and made some fantastic and hopefully long-lasting connections.
But you know us – we’re fairly irreverent and a bit cynical for this do-gooder scene (teehee) – so true to form, just for fun, instead of doing a serious recap, I thought I’d share our top twelve “WTF?” moments. Please note tongue is firmly planted in cheek!
No. 12 - we had a stress attack in the whole run up to our session about how everyone at this conference appeared to be obsessed with fundraising... and then no one in our session cared about that. Phew! Note that link is to the Twitter stream for our session - lots of good stuff if you want to check it out.
No. 11 - In a generally female-dominated industry, the NTEN Award winners – and the presenters of those winners – were all male. It was a little weird. Jus' sayin'.
No. 10 - Rockstar Beth Kanter was being followed around by hordes of groupies all day every day for 4 days. By the time we caught up with her in the hotel bar on Tuesday night, the poor dear was about ready to collapse or cry or both. We had to give her hugs and help her with chill vibes for a little while. [Love!] :)
No. 9 – The conference food was awesome. Seriously. Not joking. In what weird twilight zone does that happen??
No. 8 – The very active Twitter stream went dead by 9:30 pm on the first two nights. Dang, y’all, association peeps party way harder than you nonprofiteers. Lightweights!
No. 7 – Speaking of which – the DC contingent rocked the house (despite jetlag) at the afterparty on Monday night, closed the bar down and refused to leave (and all headed elsewhere for more shenanigans late into the night). Who closes a bar at 12:30???
No. 6 – The session on sustaining and building community had a Facebook Causes guy on the panel. Eh?
No. 5 – The whole conference’s obsession with the Swine Flu. I mean, really. Avoiding swine flu is easy. Drink lots of bourbon.
Or click here to find out if you have it.
No. 4 – The panel session on grassroots advocacy’s key final takeaway – “write emails that cut through the noise”. Email? Really? Seriously? 
No. 3 – David Neff of the American Cancer Society telling a whole room of nonprofits that they should start with Facebook. Dave – we heart you, but… huh??? You really think so?
No. 2 – The Google guy in the usability session downplaying site search because “it usually doesn’t work” – and never mentioning Google gadgets. Or the fact that the two websites they were looking at had no search box. That’s your usability problem right there dude. Who “navigates” any more?
Number 1 "WTF?" Moment... Rob Cottingham of Noise to Signal fame doing stand-up comedy at the afterparty. Yes, really! Awesome.
Seriously, though, it was an honor to be part of this conference. I couldn’t think of a good joke to make in my list about Clay Shirky, whose genius and awesomeness know no bounds, but I will share this perfect link from Chad Norman on 15 Clay Shirky Quotes That Blew My Mind at NTC which sums that up quite nicely. [UPDATE - and check out Rob's doodles on his keynote - OMG. Kool and the Gang or what!!]
Nor can I say anything about Holly Ross and the NTENny staff (a whole five or six of them total!) to adequately express how really truly amazing they are. Thanks so much for the invitation to participate. It was really great to see you again (or for the first time F2F) and I really hope we can make it to Atlanta next year!
To end, here (among many, many good ones) is my all time 09ntc favorite tweet of the conference.
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5 comments:
What a great post! I didn't get to attend NTEN (sadly) but at least have a sense of it from all the tweets and blog posts. This is so fun (I like a bit of irreverence - it makes the world go round). The Beyonce video mashup - spectacular! And these tweets are gold. Some point out the paradox between the way we were and the way we are becoming, causing us pause to reflect and rethink and be more intentional. We can't do that until we can see the diferences - your insights contribute a lot. That last tweet is priceless! Thanks Maddie!
Glad to make #2 the best part is there is a type in that tweet.
I meant to say the google dude, but people seemed to like "the google" which I can by no means take credit for.
Since that was the last session of the conference I was just about fried and didn't know a WTF from another person touting failure.
Hey Maddie,
Thank you for the tweet + sharing! I certainly had a great time there too. Twitter added this whole other layer of interactivity, no? First conference experience like it. A little different knowing what everyone looks like and random professional details about them before actually 'meeting' them for the first time (but awesome nonetheless:)
Here's a complete HD video of the session/panel discussion that Maddie Grant, Lindy Dreyer, Susan Mernit and I gave at NTC.
can i hear more about the food!
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