Alt Summit

Alt Summit day 2 started early. Due to the bad weather the day before the lovely Erin Loechner had been delayed and missed her session on Getting Your online Life Oragnized on the Thursday afternoon. So that we wouldn’t miss out, she ran it at 8am on the Friday morning!

It was a great class on getting your stuff in order. Erin has kindly shared her session on her blog here in case you’re interested.

I think the two things that I really took away from it was to ‘think customisation not organisation’ and that you shouldn’t really focus on more than 3 social media networks or you begin to spread yourself too thin. It was a great session that I think will sink in more as I’m getting myself settled in Toronto later this month.

The first official session of the day for me was to attend the roundtables. I had narrowed it down to two options of the ones I really wanted to attend and was struggling to decide, until I saw a tweet from one of the hosts to say that due to the bad weather, they wouldn’t be able to fly in for it. That was my decision made for me. I went to Feeling the Fear: Putting Big Ideas in Motion, led by Michelle Edgemont. It was great!

Michelle talked about the four main fears for her (rejection; uncertainty; loss (of time and money); failure) and how to overcome them. She had us write down our big ideas, some of mine actually surprised me, and choose our number one dream to get started on. Then she asked us to write down why we haven’t started yet and to really think about what was behind that. That part wasn’t easy – being honest with myself on these things can make me squirmy, but it’s not totally a bad thing.

Finally Michelle asked us to write down 3 to-dos that we could achieve for that day. Three small tasks that could get us one tiny step closer to our goal of making this big dream happen and to repeat with three more things each day after. I’m a bit behind with this, I’m blaming the travel, but I am really thinking and planning my big idea at the moment. Hopefully I can really get that going in Toronto.

The second (official) session for the day I attended was Building Offline Events. I went into this with an open mind, and while the first speaker’s ideas on events didn’t really gel with me, the other 3 on the panel really got me thinking.

Some of the things I took away from this session:

• What can your attendees afford? If your readers are mainly artists they are probably not going to be able to afford a $3000+ retreat, but might love to be part of a half day local session
• Ask your community that you have built for help. Many will want to be involved
• Know your mission – be clear on why you are running the event and what you hope the attendees will get out of it
• Know your market – both clients and sponsors (if you have them). Determine what works best for you
• Have intention – ask for what you really want. Intentions evolve and you have to evolve with them
• Release the things that no longer fit for your business or event as you grow
• Have a good team to help you – partner with your opposite, they will help you see what you can’t
• Know what you consider a successful event and how you will measure it

Next up was lunch and the second Keynote with Stefan Sagmeister. He was interesting to listen to and he had some interesting thoughts on happiness and how to increase it in your life. My one real takeaway from the keynote was: do more of what you like and less of what you don’t. Focus on what worked today and build on that tomorrow.

The final session I attended was probably the first that wasn’t a good fit for me. I went to the advanced blogging skills session where they talked about editorial calendars; getting an advisory board; creating a passive income; and finding representation. A lot of it was either more advanced than where I’m at, or things that I hadn’t even considered and I’m not sure that I would. It was really interesting to see how seriously blogging is taken in the US, especially compared to Australia. I think most of what I got out of this session came from the Q&A at the end.

Here’s what I took away from this session:

• Some people will want and need an advisory board. You need to think about how to pay the people on your board and what you want from them
• Content is king: You don’t need all your ducks in a row, you just need a duck
• Systemise everything and make it scalable. Teach your system to someone to remove the kinks
• Do what you do best, hire out the rest
• When looking for representation, you need to do your homework. Know that firm inside out before approaching them.
• Know which kind of representation that you need: Manager, Publicist, Agent
• Everyone’s path is different
• Keep making the content you’re confident in
• Focus your energy on your brand and don’t waste it on exposure
• Lead with your best numbers – where you have the biggest following twitter, pinterest, facebook – it doesn’t have to be your blog
• To draw people from Pinterest to your long form blog post, use a great photo and add the blog heading to it. It will draw people to click through to read the whole post.

The Closing Keynote was from Katie Sokoler of Color Me Katie. She talked a lot about what she did on her blog and where she gets her inspiration. At the end she had all the attendees blow up balloons and throw them in the air which was fun. She was very different to the rest of the conference, but I think the people who attended and stayed for the balloons enjoyed it.

The mini parties in the evening were fun, with each sponsor hosting their own one. The rooms were beautifully decorated and I think a lot of people had fun. I woke late for my first session of the Saturday design camps, which I was horrified about, but it was an open class and I was able to slip in the back.

Alt Summit was an awesome experience for me and I think I’d probably do it again. I’m really glad that I went.