Lavacon is an annual conference held in Portland, Oregon that caters to technical communication and content strategy professionals. Not surprisingly, this group generated a flood of tweets on Twitter using the hashtag #lavacon. Below are some of the most helpful and hilarious tweets I saw over the week; you can see the full fire hose by searching on Twitter for #lavacon.
As a frequent and fervent tweeter, I found Twitter to be invaluable in a conference setting. Not only did I gain insight on sessions I didn’t attend, I found new friends and colleagues simply by sharing an experience on Twitter. I also finally met people in person that I only knew through tweets.
Did you attend Lavacon? Were there other tweets you found noteworthy? Share them with us in the comments. If you missed out on the fun and overall fantastic presentations, Lavacon will be back at the Portland Hilton and Executive Tower in 2014.
Editing Note: I added quotation marks for clarity when the tweets below referenced a presenter’s words. I also removed #lavacon hashtag in the tweets for brevity.
LavaCon Conference LavaCon 18 Oct Some places to explore #CraftBeer in downtown #PDX while at #lavacon: @baileystaproom @ravenandrose @deschutesbeer @streetcarbistro
David L. Caruso dccd 21 Oct One great way to measure your value is by how many times people say to you “Wow, how did you do that!” Via @vkosterlenhardt
Alyssa Fox afox98 21 Oct ***Forget the job title. Describe what you do.*** @vkosterlenhardt
Chuck Martin chuck_martin 21 Oct “Content should be accessible from anywhere.” Yet Adobe’s own docs are not if I am not online
Sarah O’Keefe sarahokeefe 21 Oct Average attention span. Ouch. pic.twitter.com/Cknat5RBKI
Kim Higdon kim_higdon 21 Oct Most popular social networks for brands to engage with end users: 68% LinkedIn, 62% Facebook and 29% Twitter. @KapilVermaAdobe
Chris Parker ChrispyBites 21 Oct I am the 29%! #OccupyContent.
MarciaRieferJohnston MarciaRJohnston 21 Oct Content strategy defined by @sarahokeefe: supporting your company’s business goals with information.
Joe Lopata JLopataCS 21 Oct Number one way to transport content is Excel. #SadButTrue
Bonni Graham Esotericabjg 21 Oct @sarahokeefe “start by fixing what you with what you have. That builds credibility.” Yessy yes yes.
Chuck Martin chuck_martin 21 Oct Content has never been for the faint of heart. Everyone thinks they can do it, but everyone is wrong.
David L. Caruso dccd 21 Oct “If feedback is coming from real users, don’t judge the final design thru ur eyes. It’s not ugly if it works for them” @joegollner
Alyssa Fox afox98 21 Oct “Customers are dying for examples.” @RichrdHendricks – YES.
Alyssa Fox afox98 21 Oct “People who can run should be able to carry those not built to run.” @Ninety7
Chris Parker ChrispyBites 21 Oct I regret to inform my friends that the living salad has been pronounced dead. Deliciously dead. Mostly delicious. #TheseAreTheJokes
Marli Mesibov marsinthestars 21 Oct “There’s a difference between technical skills and soft skills, like leadership, power management, and influence.” @aames
Marli Mesibov marsinthestars 21 Oct “There are vendors who say ‘feed your crap into my machine and greatness will come out,’ but that’s not a thing.” @nozurbina
Jennifer DeAngelo JenDeAngelo512 21 Oct “Research, brainstorm, taxonomy creation, archetype & message architecture needed to commuincate with clients” @marsinthestars
David L. Caruso dccd 21 Oct The core of @marsinthestars #Taxonomy are 1. Preferred Term 2. Definition 3. Synonyms (1 & 3 must b same part of speech!)
Sean Hopkins sean_hopkins 0 21 Oct Thanks [to] today’s lunch, I see this as just another buffet. pic.twitter.com/jKnrEtfYD3
Marli Mesibov marsinthestars 22 Oct JOB BLUTH IS PRESENTING AT #LAVACON?!?! #finalcountdown
Marli Mesibov marsinthestars 22 Oct “Metadata’s created from tears unicorns cry when you structure content in blobs, not chunks.” @jcolman as quoted by @meaningmeasure
Ed Marsh edmarsh 22 Oct @MarciaRJohnston if you see me before I see you, please say hi!
MarciaRieferJohnston MarciaRJohnston 22 Oct @edmarsh I might be sitting right behind. Next time, put a photo of the back of your head in your profile. Dare you to turn around.
Joe Lopata JLopataCS 23 Oct “Content creation didn’t start as a way to burn through money. It was created to add value.” @WebWorksChris
Joe Lopata JLopataCS 23 Oct “Rule of 3- if you have to answer the same question 3 times in a short period, create content to solve the problem.” @mattrsullivan
Marli Mesibov marsinthestars 23 Oct You have to be patient. You need a fair amount of content in the CMS before you start to see changes.
Chris Parker ChrispyBites 23 Oct I’ve heard the word ubiquitous more times at #lavacon than I did getting my English degree.
Nice! Thanks for pulling this together, Ed. Lavacon rocked, and following the tweet stream added to the value and fun. The list of classic tweets would go on and on. (Suggestion for your list: You might want to add “Lavacon” back in where it’s part of the sentence, as in Chris Parker’s last tweet.) One of my favorite moments was when you and I were tweeting about meeting face to face only to discover that you were sitting right in front of me.
Nice catch, Marcia. I added some back after making the mistake of a global search and replace, but looks like I missed that one.
It was really great meeting you and thanks for sharing your thoughts! It was pretty funny how we met; I decided not to add any of my own tweets to this list, but I may have to make an exception!