Since I had to leave the 140 Conference early on Thursday and get back to work, Renegade intern Niko DeMordaunt filled in for me and prepared these wonderful notes. For my take on the conference and an explanation of what it is, see my savory post on FastCompany.com: I’m Not Done With My Potatoes.
The big screen
Marci Liroff, a casting director who worked on movies such as E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, explained emphatically how she turned from a Twitter rookie into a Twitter pundit. Noting that Twitter is about “giving, not selling,” Liroff spoke of the film industry’s slow but steady integration with websites such as Twitter and Skype.
Speaking of Skype, famed author Deepak Chopra couldn’t make it to the #140conf but was video-projected in via Skype. Chopra held a captive audience as he spoke grandly of the “human potential” and social media’s ability to achieve peace and harmony through broad networks.
Let’s get physical
The self-proclaimed Lupus Ladies of Twitter, led by Amanda Greene, turned this digital conference into veritable love fest with their emotional testimony. The four women all suffer from Lupus and have used social media to create support networks. Christine Miserandino went so far as to strip from a dress into pajamas to illustrate the point that she is a regular person in pajamas who employed social media to create a support system.
Jack Hidary, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, followed the Lupus Ladies with his own memorable performance. A former neuroscientist, Hidary told the audience to “Go Limbic,” meaning they should target their audience’s whole brain, not just a small part of it. To further his point, Hidary passed out small wooden discs and had the crowd team up into groups of four to create a flying contraption. The “airplane” that flew the furthest won iPod Shuffles for all the team members.
Crowd pleasers
On a panel with other television executives, Steve Krakauer brought social media back into reality. Krakauer, a digital producer from Piers Morgan Tonight (CNN), reminded the social media consumers that Twitter and Facebook need to translate into more income / ratings / viewers, or the social media efforts develop into nothing.
According to Krakauer, social media needs to turn into ROI. Well, according to Ted Rubin, social media needs to turn into ROR, or Return on Relationship. Rubin roused cheers by reminding the audience to “look into eyes, not iPads” in social interactions. Rubin believes people should use the platform (i.e. Twitter) to build personal relationships, not avoid them.