Whitney recently posted her list of Top Five Things she was most looking forward to at the 2009 edition of Web 2.0 Expo SF, and that got me thinking about what I want to get out of the conference. (Her post also made me very envious of all you iPhone owners, but that’s another matter.)

The finishing touches are still being applied to the Web 2.0 Expo schedule, but so far my five picks are (the personal schedule builder is a very handy tool for this):

1. Accessibility in a Web 2.0 World with Robin Christopherson (AbilityNet)
   While I’m theoretically down with the idea of accessibility, since I don’t encounter disability situations that often, I’m not always sure what that means in practical terms. Robin intends to outline the numerous spin-off benefits for usability, platform compliance, and revenue that accessibility delivers, so I’m anticipating that this will give me a foundation for incorporating universal best practices into my marketing work, and advocating for them in general.
2. TV & Radio with an API: Stories from Current and NPR with Robin Sloan (Current) and Zach Brand (NPR, Digital media)
   I confess I’m a just a goo-goo eyed (eared?) fan of NPR–I’m a member of both KQED and KRCB–so part of my desire to see this is just to be in the same room with someone from the NPR team. Their stories around the business case for “brand and release” sounds particularly useful for me.
3. Setting Content Free at Ford Motor Company with Maggie Fox (Social Media Group) and Scott Monty (Ford Motor Company)
   Here’s an enormous, so-last-millennium company making a big ol’ Web 2.0 leap–a case study on so many levels. I’m hoping Maggie and Scott will be very frank about the resistance hurdles they must have had to overcome as well as the tools they’re actually using to implement their content opening strategy.
4. Why Local is the New Global with Siva Kumar (TheFind, Inc.), Scott Dunlap (NearbyNow, Inc.), Joel Toledano (Krillion, Inc.), Ethan Stock (Zvents), and Greg Sterling (Sterling Market Intelligence)
   Buying local is really important to me, but there’s no way I want the online shopping experience to disappear either. Similarly, as an event planner, finding a way to balance the face to face vs. the online experience is critical to my work. I’ll be particularly interested to hear the panelists’ examples and data on changes in customer purchasing behavior.
5. The “hallway track”
   I classify myself as a high functioning introvert, so for me, hanging out in the conference lounge areas and at the O’Reilly booth in the Expo Hall is more productive than trying to circulate with a drink in my hand at the evening events. Those eddies of humanity outside session rooms and around booths are just as casual as the evening events, and–extra bonus–I’m not operating on brain overload from a full day of sessions or bobbling hors d’oeuvres. Those times are easier for me to say hi to people who are alone, and, where there are tables, sometimes a pleasant group camaraderie crops up. We all get each other talking.

What I’m particularly appreciating is that once again there are so many session choices that I’m able to balance building on what I already know with learning about totally new topics. As the agenda continues to fill in, the choices will definitely be harder! And I couldn’t even settle on the Tuesday workshops…

Trackback URI | Comments RSS