WPHighEd

HighEdWeb 2013 Wrap-Up

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Photo by Jeff Stevens

Photo by Jeff Stevens

Ok, so I know I probably should have posted this about 2 weeks ago, but things have been pretty hectic around here. HighEdWeb 2013 happened earlier this month in Buffalo, NY, and, as always, it was an amazing experience. We got to be involved in an AMA (ask me anything) with Steve Wozniak, and we got to meet a fantastic speaker named Scott Stratten (@unmarketing; author of the new book “QR Codes Kill Kittens“). The AMA with Woz was intriguing; he has a very unique personality and an interesting perspective on life, human behavior and technology. The keynote from Scott Stratten was amazingly funny. At one point, I described his speech as “Lewis Black speaking our language.” If you’re a member of the HighEdWeb professional association, you can actually watch his closing keynote online (warning: mullet imminent).

The keynotes, though, are just a very small part of what makes HighEdWeb so amazing. The conference is 3 days packed full of interesting presentations, fantastic networking opportunities, and fun. Here is a quick run-down of the presentations that interested me this year.

Those were the main presentation highlights for me from the conference. The biggest takeaway, though (and a large contributing factor to the reason there’s nothing from day 2 in my wrap-up), was the experience I had participating in the HighEdWeb hackathon. Essentially, the HighEdWeb association identified a local charity that was in need of a new website, then enlisted the help of anyone who would volunteer at the conference to put that website together in one night. We began the process at 7 that evening, and finally gave up the ghost (with only a few of us still “standing” – metaphorically, of course, I wasn’t going to even attempt to code while standing up) around 3:30 the next morning. At its peak, I believe there were somewhere around 70 people working on various portions of the project. We didn’t get the site completed, but we did get a huge amount of work done on it, and were told that we got it to a place where the internal team at the charity could pick up the ball and finish it up. I’ll more than likely go more in-depth on this whole experience at some point in the future with its own post, but I haven’t fully processed yet what to say about it.

Of course, everything I’ve mentioned so far in this post is all work and no play. Those that have been to HighEdWeb before know that that’s far from representative of the HEWeb experience. We did have plenty of fun while we were there, too. The official social outings were cool and enjoyable, but anyone can tell you about them. What was really cool, though, were the unofficial excursions people made in small groups. I know there were a lot of groups that journeyed out to Niagara Falls (some even went over to the Canadian side). Within my group, we spent a lot of time in Spot Coffee and at the Century Grille (right across the street from our hotel). One night, the Century Grill even had “baskets of bacon” available at the bar (in place of the traditional bowls of peanuts or pretzels or whatever). The bacon was amazing. It was incredibly thick cut, almost like ham, and just melted in your mouth.

If you’ve never been to HighEdWeb before, you definitely need to plan for next year’s event. If you have been to HighEdWeb before, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

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