With MarketingCamp leader Paul Wcisclo

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend my first Unconference, sponsored by MarketingCamp.

An “unconference” is an event where the agenda is decided on the fly, by attendees voting in real time for the sessions they want to participate in. Rather than structured one-way presentations, the sessions are more participative and the session leaders more facilitators than presenters.

The MarketingCamp Unconference, held yesterday at Nokia headquarters in Sunnyvale, was well-planned and executed. Morning sessions had already been decided by an online vote but afternoon sessions were open for proposal. At any given time there were from 6-8 simultaneous sessions occurring.

I proposed two sessions, both of which were accepted and offered:

• The Leverage Factor: Strategies to successfully leverage all your marketing resources
• Elect This! Lessons for Marketing from the long(!) ongoing political process

Both sessions were well-attended and generated great discussions. Other topics included The Art of Social Media, What’s Your Story: Leading with your Why, Personal Branding for Entrepreneurs, Content Marketing, Start-up CEO’s Marketing Myopia, and a more than a dozen more.

Great opportunity to learn, connect with other marketing professionals, and share new ideas and concepts I’m developing.

Kudos to SVForum‘s Marketing SIG for sponsoring this, especially to Paul Wcislo (the “Marketing Hero”) and Tom Ross for their efforts to make this event happen, and to Jennifer Berkley Jackson, a leader of the SVPMA Product Camp, the pioneer in marketing conferences in Silicon Valley, who has been espousing the value of these events to me for several years.