More coverage of the conference:

• The conference’s blog (including video interviews with the speakers): ugaconnect.wordpress.com
• Twitter coverage @ http://twemes.com/connect
• Photos, courtesy of Josh Hallett

Session 1: Engagement

Session 2: PR on Facebook - The Public’s Perspective

Session 3 - Relationship Building

Session 4 - Keynote: Bert Dumars, Newell Rubbermaid

Session 5 - Social media and intellectual property, Doug Isenberg, The Gigalaw Firm

Follow Dr. Vorvoreanu’s live blogging of this session here: http://ci.cs.clemson.edu/mihaela/?p=108

Session 6 - Measurement: Jim Fetig & Kathi Wallace (GIT), Mia Lustria (FSU)

It’s an event that will present the best articles, interviews, debates, case studies, and essays on how social media continues to change the Public Relations and Communications theory and practice, its relationships with other disciplines, and our roles as practitioners, students, and teachers.

It will run –like the other two previous editions– for one week.

It will happen online, at globalprblogweek.com.

It’s going to be a free event.

It will continue to be a community-supported, volunteers-driven, unaffiliated event. At least two prestigious research organizations will support the event, and any (non-financial) support that will raise the industry’s participation to it will be welcome.

It will encourage new voices and fresh perspectives, it will value experience and real-world case studies, and it will have (I hope) a robust international participation.

What’s new this year:

• 2 or 3 keynote/invited contributions
• digg-style voting mechanism to choose the top 3 entries
• live events (example: a daily live BlogTalk Radio show)
• a daily event in Second Life
• video, in addition to podcasting
• daily summaries of the most discussed topics
• real-time updates for the number/titles/authors of entries submitted for each category

Also, we’re going to have:

• a more effective communication about the rules
• clear guidelines for accepting/rejecting the entries
• strict enforcement of deadlines for submitting entries.

Now, before discussing more about the nitty-gritty of the event, I’d like to ask you:

How do you see this event?
What do you expect from it?
What would you like to read/ see/ listen to?
What it will make it most valuable for you, and for the industry?

Please share –via comments, blog posts, or email– any ideas or suggestions on how to make this event a great one.

Thank you. We’re going to have a blast :)

So here they are:

• I’ll be at the Search Engines Strategies conference in New York, on April 9, where my boss Rob Key is going to join Nan Dawkins from RedBoots on a panel called Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy
• Rob is going to present our first Second Life community project, done in partnership with Plant-It 2020, at WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Basic Training conference in New Orleans, on April 18. If you plan to attend the event (which is highly recommended!), you can use guestofconverseon for a $75 discount when you register. (Disclaimer: Converseon is currently a WOMMA governing member)
• Finally, I’ll be at the Authentic Communications event organized by the Business Development Institute in New York, on April 24, where Rob will join a panel of top communicators from Porter Novelli, Hewlett-Packard, AARP and Community Connect to discuss about social media’s impact on corporate communications and branding. Please drop me an e-mail if you’re interested in getting a discounted pass.

Hope to see you there!