Many of us spend hours each day on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. While some blog for a personal audience, those of us who blog publicly are often trying to evolve; evolve into confident writers and proficient social media participants, and grow our connections and networks.
The Evo Conference, which takes place in Park City, Utah June 24-26 at The Canyons Resort, is a conference that encourages just that. With its hands-on workshops, which encourage you to be an active participant, and its holistic focus, which emphasizes the need to not only evolve yourself, but to help others grow as well, you are sure to walk away from this conference with new skills, enthusiasm, and friendships.
Jyl Johnson Pattee, the co-creator of Evo (as well as founder of MomItForward.com and the popular #gno Twitter parties), allowed me to interview her via email in order to share more exciting details about this conference. (Evo’s other co-creator is Rachael Herrscher from TodaysMama.com):
1). What makes this conference unique?
The main differentiating factor for Evo ’10 is our holistic, hands-on, and engaging approach to both instruction and connection.
Evo focuses on helping attendees take their blogging and business skills to the next level through case-study based panels and hands-on workshops to provide a real-time learning environment for immediate application once back in the real world.
For example, imagine you’re a foodie. You’d get to spend an afternoon cooking, photographing, writing, and learning the essentials of taking a post from start to finish with 40 of your foodie peers. The environment quickly becomes one of peer-to-peer, hands-on learning both helping you learn real-time skills while at the same time building a community of foodie friends to engage with after the conference.
Finally, connection is key at Evo. Whether it’s interacting one-on-one with your favorite bloggers or brands, enjoying yoga on the mountain with other fitness enthusiasts, or participating in our conference-wide service initiative, we have many engaging activities planned with the goal to help conference goers make meaningful connections.
2). What are some of the highlights or features of this conference?
A few highlights include:
- Before and Afters— Participants can enter to win a makeover of their blog homepage design, a photo, a pitch, a sales proposal, their Twitter background, their Facebook page, or a post they’ve written. These must be submitted by the early bird deadline (March 15) and will be used in the panel discussions during the conference.
- Health and Wellness—We are working on offering fitness classes on Friday and Saturday as well as healthy food options for meal and snack times.
- Niche Workshop Sessions—We will have a series of small (35-50 people max) hands-on workshops for various niches—food, craft, style, blog to business, photography, etc.— at no additional cost. These workshops will focus on taking a blog post from conception to fruition, including learning how to make the item (where applicable), photograph it, write about it, and the ins and outs of posting it (layout and design, SEO, etc.).
- Top Notch, Affordable Accommodations—The Canyons resort is located in the mountains of Park City, UT and offers several room types and sizes. If you are looking for a fun, affordable option, you may want to book the time share, which has 3 adjoining rooms, sleeps up to 9, has a full kitchen, and two hot tubs (in the bathrooms) that seat 4 each. Splitting the cost among friends brings the room rate down to about $40 (excluding tax) a night each.
- Making a Difference While Learning—We will be announcing some very fun and meaningful activities we’ll be doing in partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Think cause marketing and real-time learning! It’s gonna rock!
3). Does this conference have different learning tracks or focuses?
Evo is focused on the evolution of women in social media, focusing on inspiring and teaching them to take it up a notch personally, professionally, and/or in their blogging or social media practices.
Our inspiring key note speakers will address the more personal side of things. And, the break-out sessions will follow two tracks: blogging/social media and business.
4). If you could share your top 3 tips for conference newbies, what would they be?
- Introduce yourself to everyone—Say hello to people you are in line with, people you sit next to in break-out sessions, people you eat meals with, and yes, people you walk up to and introduce yourself to that you have never met before! Everyone wants to meet new people, even those that seem to have lots of friends. So, don’t hold back or be shy. Reach out and be approachable. And remember, wear your name tag so people can easily identify who you are and have your business cards ready to hand out!
- Go to every event—Conferences offer a lot of opportunities to connect. Go to every event. If you don’t have anyone to go with, go by yourself. Sometimes it appears as if everyone has a friend and groups are hanging out together. The reality is that many people don’t. You can always arrange to meet people ahead of time by asking people during break-out sessions if they are planning to go or by tweeting to people before the conference. The fact is that during these more intimate gatherings is where you often meet what can turn out to be some of your lifelong friends.
- Reach out to and include others—I think one of the best ways to meet new people and put your own nerves at ease is to be on the lookout for others. When you see people sitting alone, walk up to them, sit next to them, and introduce yourself to them. Everyone appreciates when people reach out to them, whether they are seasoned conference goers or new to the scene.
5). How can people find out more information about your conference or contact you for questions?
To find out more about the Evo Conference, visit: http://evoconference.com, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/evo_conference, fan us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/evoconference. For questions, please contact us at evoconference [at] gmail.com.
I don’t know about you, but I am wishing I had the funds to go to Evo! Sounds like a fabulously energizing, educational, and fun conference. And Jyl is right about putting yourself out there, even when you’re a newbie. In fact, I said hi to Jyl at Blissdom while waiting in line for an event. I was pretty sure she had no idea who I was, but having admired her social media skills on Twitter for so long, I introduced myself. And just as I suspected, she was as sweet as ever.
Tickets are still available, but the early bird rate is only available until March 15th, so act quickly to save $100 off the ticket price! If you go to Evo, be sure to let us know your thoughts and experiences!
