We're Jammin':Seattle BizJam '08

We're here!

11:22am (Pacific Time):

There's a buzz here. An excitement that only can come with 300 creatives hyped from Tully's Coffee and WiFi connections.

It's Social Media day. The keynote speaker, DL Byron encouraged us to blog about our issues and products, to "geek out online" about what we are doing. That we should make ourselves interesting, that the "back story" is where the good stuff is. That blogging is brand awareness.

My next door neighbor in the CRAVE Connection Café, at the Sponsor Table right next to ours, is Laura Messerschmitt, senior product manager at Intuit. She's been telling me about the exciting new Intuit products launching in September. But Laura's most important news is that she's getting married next month, followed by one whole month on a Mediterranean cruise. Sounds very cool.

I'll be posting from BizJam for the next two days and you'll be hearing from some of the speakers and sponsors who have been energizing us and getting us to think about our businesses in new ways.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[DL Byron]

Thanks for the mention and very nice to meet you. This is a great event. What's remarkable to me is how many women are here. That's not the case for most events I attend.

[Laura Messerschmitt]

I've been here at Bizjam since 7 am. It's been quite a day so far. I attended the keynote... it was a great chance for people to get their questions answered about social media. I was also excited that Dan McComb mentioned Intuit's Future of Business report. (That was a study done by Intuit last year regarding what small businesses will look like in 10 years.)

After the keynote, I headed back to the networking room. There's a lot of buzz and activity over here. It's where the coffee is... so I suppose that's driving the people to come! Ok, more later...

[Keith Gormezano, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor]

I just flew back yesterday from spending three weeks helping out my parents who live full time in Nice, France. I was still asleep when I got up this morning but being here has recharged my batteries. There is something about being around people who think the same way you do.

I was happy to finally meet Laura Messerschmitt above from Intuit who told me that the company is bringing out a Mac version of QuickBooks (probably the Pro version) in September. Many of my clients have asked me when the new version would come out.

[Joe Hage, Seattle Marketing Strategy]

Here at BizJam, finally able to meet Judy and Bob in person. If you haven't, make a point of it -- call them, email them -- they are very accessible and out of nowhere Bob was kind enough to send me a business referral. Very appreciated.

It's great to be here seeing all the people I've wanted to meet.

[Rachel Whalley, Psychotherapist & Energy Healer]

What I've loved about this year's BizJam is what I love about Biznik in general: the genuine connections.

Seriously, I've met several people in person here--Joe Hage and Mark Silver among them--who I had only previously interacted with online. And upon meeting these fellas in person, we have all come toward each other with arms outstretched and hugged the crap out of each other.

These are professional businessmen who have years of experience and reputations, and we've never met in person before, and we're hugging.

Talk about the impact of social media!

[Pamela Ziemann]

What is inspiring to me is that even though this is the day for "technology" so many of the presenters are reinforcing community and really coming together. There's a lot of talk on just being real. Should be an easy thing and yet we're all learning together. Very cool. I just walked by Leif's presentation and it was totally hoppin!