Twitter on Main Street

This past week Main Streeters from all over the country and the world traveled to Chicago to take part in the National Main Streets Conference. The theme was "Becoming Main Street 2.0", which focused on social media and the web.

Social media was also used to connect both attendees and interested netizens via Twitter and a blog. You can view the Twitter stream here and the Live Blog here.

Monday, I presented "30 Minute Crash Course: Facebook", to a group of eager attendees. I booted up a good 20 minutes prior to the session, got the projector synced to the notebook and had the PowerPoint up. Then I plugged in the power brick and bam, the demo gods stuck, reboot. Fifteen minutes later, back up again but missing left side of slides. The show must go on, already behind schedule and this is only 30 minutes to demonstrate how Facebook can put more faces on main street and how to create a Public Profile page. Enjoyed the expo reception and being introduced to the National Trust team by Norma Miess, the former ED of the Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin. Ran into, Dan Rinsema-Sybenga,  another CommunityWalk user from Muskegon, MI while chatting at the Google Maps booth.

Tuesday was Bash day for me, no presentations. Several hundred of us gathered at the River East Art Center, 435 E. Illinois Street to network, eat, drink and dance (not me).

Wednesday was the Breakfast Tweetup and one more presentation.

Tweeters at tweetup, Curtis Gibbs(CRA/LA), Andy Chapman(FoxWebCo), Marianna Hayes(HALO), Eric Richardson(blogdowntown.com) and Andre Natta(CMCS). This was my first live tweetup. I attended one in Springfield last week but that was virtual.

This time the presentation karma was good, New room with a good layout, microphone and first session of the morning. Plently of time to get everything set up.
No sooner did I finish my presentation than Facebook released a new layout for pages. That's technology. Good thing I didn't show an entire page, only sections, which are still the same. The crash courses seemed to be a hit. A good way to get a taste of social media.

I wonder how many communities will have adopted the Web 2.0 skills developed this week when the conference is held in Oklahoma in 2010.