Pittsburgh Young Professionals, PodCamp Pittsburgh, And Paneling
What’s in store for PodCamp Pittsburgh 7? What’s going to be the “next big thing” in social media? How do you defend yourself against a stuffed bear attack? Tonight we had a chance to talk about all that and more during as panelists at a Pittsburgh Young Professionals event.
First things first—having two rather large stuffed bears a few feet away from our table definitely had a way of kicking our panel discussion up a notch (or 10). Luckily for us they were both distracted by something in the front of the restaurant and didn’t cause any trouble.
Once we knew we were safe from any stuffed bear attacks, Norm Huelsman kicked things off by providing a brief history of PodCamp and PodCamp Pittsburgh and talking about this year’s theme of “Building Your Digital Toolbox.”
After Norm’s overview, I was joined on the panel by fellow PodCamp organizers Mike Sorg, owner of Sorgratron Media, and Deanna Ferrari, Account Manager with Geben Communications.
In true PodCamp fashion, we covered a wide range of topics including how business can measure ROI on their social media efforts, the increasing roll images and videos are playing in digital marketing, and how to pitch your business to the media.
The most thought-provoking question of the night had to be about what we thought would be the “next big thing” in social media.
New platforms and technologies are going to continue to change although it’s going to take a huge disturbance in the force (shameless Star Wars reference) for someone to unseat Facebook. They not only have a huge head start on any Johnny-come-latelies, but with 955 million monthly active users as of the end of June 2012, they are also incredibly entrenched.
To me the biggest opportunities are around technologies that will allow us to blur the lines between our physical and virtual worlds.
Smartphones and mobile apps are great, but they’re still a little clunky. QR codes just never caught on. As technology continues to evolve, you have to think the focus is going to be on creating truly immersive user experiences that allow you to interact with information and people without much more effort than a blink of the eye.
That’s all for now. If you want to learn more about social media, stuffed bears, or the latest in emerging technologies, register for PodCamp Pittsburgh.
By: Shawn Graham
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