Enterprise 2.0 Conference Highlights – The Networking – Part II

Continuing further with this series of blog posts gathering some more highlights from the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, here is Part II, related to networking, where I would like to cover some further thoughts on what that experience was like during the course of last week. And, now coming closer to the end of another week at work, I can certainly confirm that the main reason why I have been away from almost everything external has been the need to have a break from all of those amazing face to face conversations, pause, think about them, what I learn, apply that newly acquired knowledge and experience(s) and move on…

And it looks like I haven’t been the only one; while doing my usual Twitter catchup this morning (Specially under the #e2conf hash tag), I noticed how plenty of those folks who were at the same conference were having post-conference fatigue symptoms, hehe, looking for a much needed "break" to get things going as well. And while wondering why that may have happened, it hit me. Big time!

Like I was saying earlier on, this year the amount of local gatherings (Dinners, tweetups, parties, etc. etc.) has been tremendous! More than in previous years, by far! I started with Sunday evening having a lovely dinner with a bunch of my favourite people in the Enterprise 2.0 space (See this picture for more details); then Monday evening’s tweetup with Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe & Jim Storer (From The Community Roundtable) on communities (Amazing event! Although throughout the whole evening I didn’t even had a chance to meet up with Connie! Grrr, guess next time!); followed by Tuesday’s Dachis Group Boston TweeUp that David Armano has been sharing a bunch of pictures over here to then finish up with my own team dinner.

Wednesday’s highlights in the networking space were a lovely dinner invitation by the Dachis Group where I had one of the most amazing conversation on social software adoption (Beyond just the IT industry) with my good friend Susan Scrupski and two incredibly smart and talented 2.0 people:  Greg Matthews and Ben Foster (Who I got to know during those conversations which I thoroughly enjoyed!). To then finish off the evening with one of the major highlights of the entire week!:

Andy McAfee‘s party!! There are a bunch of pictures from such special event all over the place, but I am going to let you go and check the Twitter stream from after the party, where the word warning keeps coming up constantly and reading through you will see why … Andy surely knows how to throw a party and it certainly was a privilege being part of it! Lots and lots of great fun, drinks and amazing conversations! I would have gone to Boston just for this one, I tell you! Many many thanks to Andy for being so gracious in offering his house for hosting one heck of a party that will be remembered for years! At least, I will! (Thanks ever so much, Andy!!)

By Thursday you can imagine what my entire body was like, right? You now know what I meant I spent a whole week sleep deprived, but privileged to be in the company of people who I have been admiring for a long while and have plenty of respect for in the area of Enterprise 2.0 and why I keep coming back to this conference. Last week was another proof! Oh, that very same Thursday evening had another night out with my team where we spent a good time having a lovely dinner, drinks and musing on what we learned from the event itself over the last few days enjoying a delightful bottle of port back at our hotel to finish off a superb week! (Thanks a lot, Josh, for that one!)

I am sure that by now you may be thinking that there have been perhaps a few too many networking events at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, right? Well, maybe; these are the ones I went to myself, including the usual last few rounds of drinks at the local Irish pub inside the Westin hotel, but there were plenty of others, too! The clear thing about these kind of local gatherings is that no matter what, when, how, why, there is nothing that would ever possibly substitute the face to face physical interactions of bright minds talking passionately about what drives them on a daily basis. Nothing.

That’s still what drives me to keep going to these conference events over and over again and why I have always been saying that an event of this magnitude without networking is no longer the event of events! Glad Enterprise 2.0 in Boston still is …

(A big shout with a special thanks to all of those folks I have met throughout the week, from "my" usual and dear suspects, to the bunch of recently met folks, with whom I had a wonderful week of constant inspiration flowing through! I won’t name you all, since I am sure I won’t do you all justice by leaving the odd name out here and there, but you all know who you are! Thanks much for being who you are! Please don’t change …)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Twitter, Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe, Jim Storer, The Community Roundtable, Dachis Group, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Greg Matthews, Ben Foster, Andy McAfee, Port, Josh Scribner, BlueIQ, Passion