Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

Sheila and Becky, business partners and friends, on stage at 140 Conference / State of NOW SmallTown in Hutchinson (courtesy Andrea Cook on Instagram)

This year, two of my very favorite conferences fell on the same day, November 8: the Social Media Tourism Symposium (SoMeT for short) in El Paso, Texas and State of NOW SmallTown in Hutchinson, Kansas.

It was one of those split-the-baby moments when I had to decide which one to attend.

The obvious choice might seem to be SoMeT;  I’ve spoken there twice, am a huge fan of conference founder Dave Serino, the attendees are the exact market for our Tourism Currents training business and this year it will be held in the state where I live.

Of course, anyone who knows Texas knows that El Paso is in the far western end of a BIG state – it’s a 9 hour drive to get there from my home in central Texas, about the same as what it takes to drive north to Hutchinson.

The other conference …. #SmallTown2012 is the event’s Twitter hashtag if you want to follow the action …. is organized and run by my Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray. Its focus is technology and social media in small towns and rural areas, which is very interesting, but y’all know I’m a city kid who doesn’t know a piece of farm equipment from a hole in my head.

Why did I choose to go to SmallTown, then?  Because friendship and desire to support Becky’s efforts trumps business, and going to Hutchinson means more opportunity to hear jaw-dropping insights I’ve never heard before.

SoMeT will have terrific speakers. Everyone will talk digital and social marketing and they’ll talk about it at a high level; this is probably the most advanced conference on social media in tourism in the world. SoMeT tourism geeks are that smart – they are pulling much of the rest of the destination marketing industry along behind them.

Now, I’m no genius, but I’m pretty up to speed on social media in tourism myself or I wouldn’t be teaching it to others. Since simply keeping up is not good enough, I try to stay ahead of the curve by also hanging out in places where I hear unusual things, see out-of-the-ordinary speakers and make connections that I might otherwise miss if I spent too much time in the same bubbles with fellow nerds.

The most striking feature of the SmallTown conference is the large number of ordinary folks, from stereotypical ”non-techie” places, speaking imaginatively about how they use technology and social communications in their everyday lives.

When I sit in the host venue Fox Theatre in lively downtown Hutchinson and hear their stories (only 10-15 minutes each, with zero PowerPoint – yay!) I am seeing the future because I’m getting a peek into how the first wave of regular people, the “early adopters,” use technology-based tools in towns from Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania to Lake Arrowhead, California to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Since you can follow an event from afar via Twitter hashtags, I’ll still be able to see what’s being shared at SoMeT in El Paso when I have a spare minute, and I certainly hope that next year I won’t have to make a painful choice between two such enjoyable and valuable events.

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What can city people learn from rural folks?

If my own experience is any indication – a TON.

Thanks to a diverse social network that includes interesting people in small towns and rural areas, I’ve learned so much over the last few years about the hopes, dreams, troubles and blissful moments of people who live in what I used to call “out in the middle of nowhere.”

They’re more tech-savvy than you’d think …. I recently found an AgChat Foundation Facebook discussion about the hot new Pinterest social sharing service and how farmers might use it for “agvocacy.”

You know that ongoing discussion about getting broadband internet access out into rural areas? It sure seems similar to efforts in the 1930′s to get electricity and telephone service out to less-populated places, and the same objections are being raised; it’s too expensive, there aren’t enough people to justify it, it’s a “luxury” they don’t really need, etc.  I never really thought about this problem until I got to know some small town geeks.

At last fall’s 140 Characters/State of NOW Small Town communications conference in Hutchinson, Kansas, I was honored to be chosen as one of the speakers, and I talked about this personal awakening.

There were some video problems at first, so all I have for you is the audio recording, but it’s only about 10 minutes and I talk fast.

Here’s the direct link to the audio file if you can’t see the embed box below:  http://blip.tv/140confevents/140conf-smalltown-2011-sheila-scarborough-city-kid-among-the-cattle-5639673 

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For those who are not surrounded by like-minded people (whether you’re into chess, growing roses or technology) the world can feel like a lonely place.

“Am I the only one who understands chess problems like Allumwandlung and Maximummer and Zepler doubling?”

“Am I some sort of nutball because I really like deciding between spotted-bloom roses like Cramoisi Picoté and striped ones like Patriot Kordana?”

“No one else in my small town seems to ‘get’ why I care about broadband Internet access, why I blog and what in the world I’m doing on Twitter.”

Fortunately, social web tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the still-relevant forum/BBS make it so much easier than it used to be to find people who share your enthusiasms and interests.  I’m not up to speed on where chess or rose people hang out online, but I can tell you where a bunch of rural and small town technology and social media enthusiasts will be on September 20, 2011.

They’ll be at the 140 Characters Conference Small Town in the gorgeous Fox Theatre in downtown Hutchinson, Kansas.

Uh, where?

Look below:

Right; so if you’re a city kid like me, you’re probably thinking….geesh, look at all that empty space, and those absolutely straight roads going through nothingness, it’s probably flat as a pancake, and I think I recognize the name Wichita for that nearby city….look, did I hear correctly….this is a technology event in the middle of Kansas?

It is, and I give it my City Kid Stamp of Approval.

Not that rural folks need any approval from anyone, and that’s partly the point of this particular event – rural and small town people are geeks and communicators just like urbanites, but it’s a bit harder for them to find one another, learn and socialize when they’re all spread out in less populated areas. This is the first technology-based conference that brings them all together, on their terms but with a global audience, in a cool small town like “Hutch,” with speakers that include farmers, ranchers and small town economic development experts who don’t think a one-stoplight community is a bad idea at all.

After attending the first version of 140 Small Town in 2010, I knew I’d return this year, and I’m honored to be one of many speakers from 17 states on the schedule. My topic is “City Kid Among the Cattle - How Twitter Connects Me to Another World,” wherein I’ll talk about my newfound appreciation, thanks to Twitter, of wide-open spaces, cattle management and farm equipment with mysterious prongy things.

Each speaker only gets one 10-15 minute time slot (better make it snappy!) and no PowerPoint is allowed.  WIN.

Follow the #140conf hashtag on Twitter for info and discussion about all the 140 conferences, including this one, and if you can’t make it in person, Small Town will be livestreamed on UStream.

The best idea, though, is to see it in person: student passes are only $14 and pssst….for non-students/adults, code “friendof140″ gives you a nice, fat discount when you register here.

If you’re a journalist or media person who would like to cover the conference and/or the topic of tech in small towns, here’s the excellent, comprehensive Small Town Media page.

For a quick 90 second overview of the conference, here’s my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray (who organizes Small Town along with its original founder Jeff Pulver) on an Oklahoma Horizon TV episode (direct link to video here.)

Hope I meet you in Hutchinson!

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There is an exciting new development for anyone who has ever wondered how to attract buzz and interest to their small town or rural area….and I’ll explain what a pump jack photo (to the left) has to do with it.

The popular 140 Characters Conference series – about Twitter and other communications in the “State of Now” –  has added a location to their event lineup that previously included gatherings in Los Angeles, Boston, Tel Aviv, New York London, San Francisco and Detroit.

It’s the 140 Conference SmallTown in Hutchinson, Kansas, at the historic downtown Fox Theatre on November 1, 2010.  There was an article about it in the Wichita Business Journal:  Big-city Twitter event coming to small-town Kansas.

If you’ve ever wanted to see how small towns and their economic development can benefit from technology, join me in “Hutch,” because I will not miss this one.

How did this thing end up in small town Kansas? Because of social media connections over a photo, and a blogger familiarization tour/press trip.

My Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray posted a pump jack photo of her own onto Twitter  Update: Becky says it was the other way around - Hutchinson business guy Cody Heitschmidt put up a pump jack TwitPic photo and Becky saw and commented on it.

Becky and Cody then kept up a friendly chatter on Twitter for months. When Cody said that he’d like to work with his local CVB and the Cosmosphere space museum to bring some bloggers to see his hometown, Becky agreed to be one of them….and convinced me to go, too, despite my general skepticism about blogger fam (familiarization) tours.

It turned out to be a smashing success and an example of great tourism outreach (plus how else would I have gotten to see artifacts from Liberty Bell 7 at the Cosmosphere?)

So, guess which town was top of mind when Becky started organizing 140 Conference SmallTown?

It was solid social networking by some of the Hutch townsfolk, pure and simple.  They’re going to bring WiFi into the gorgeous Art Deco Fox Theatre, fill it with a bunch of blogging/Facebooking/video-ing/Tweeting geeks, and connect that town to the whole planet.

“Flyover country,” my hind end.

This is truly groundbreaking; it speaks to how the Web is starting to allow us to live where we want and connect with people worldwide from wherever we want to, as long as we have an Internet connection.

Want to attend? There’s still time – use code 140disc when you register here, and save $40 off of the ticket price.

See you in Hutch!

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