After spending a week with family in up-state New York and with the BlogHer Business conference fresh on the brain...I had an idea. One that I'm excited about and that I hope resonates with others in the Internet community.
Woodstock is a town in upstate New York and is best known for what DIDN'T happen here... The Woodstock Music Festival took place about 70 miles away in Bethel, New York after the town elders of Woodstock passed on the idea of having one million (the expected number) revelers dragging mud all through town.
Despite their unwillingness to be a part of 60's History, Woodstock has its own identity as an Artist's Colony that makes for a very welcoming community that embraces the arts...all of them...including film, music (and internet.) See where this is going yet?
What is Woodstock 2.0 Expo?
In collaboration with a very successful film festival, in its 8th year (dogballs!...it's bashert) The Woodstock Film Festival has agreed to partner with me to develop a conference that will begin one day before the main festival and be dedicated to the internet topics that most interest me, my business associates and friends. SXSW started w/ music and so did this festival. ;-)
I'm inspired by past "un-conference" conferences like: Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex, Noah Kagen's Community Next, Jory, Elisa and Lisa's BlogHer Business conference and Mike Macadaan's upcoming, Twiistup.
Come for the Internet conference and stay for the film festival (or vice versa.) The content will be largely formed by those who want to attend but I've sketched out a rough list of topics on a wiki that focus on SOCIAL MEDIA topics. Please take a minute and share your thoughts in the comments below or within the wiki. The password is: 'millstream' in honor of the stream that runs through the town of Woodstock.
Woodstock 2.0 Expo: One room...no powerpoints...no sales pitches....just [fresh] content and demos. In my estimation, Woodstock is the perfect venue for the list of topics I'm proposing: the sharing of thoughts, ideas, creative insights and all things that are open-source.
The event will take place in the town of Woodstock in mid-October, 2007. Which topics would you like to see covered? What speakers would you like to see there?
