We run a pretty tight ship around here at Monkey Outta Nowhere, but in the last month we’ve splurged and attended three conferences: UnSummit in Minneapolis and Cultivate and Story in Chicago.
OK, UnSummit is a free anti-conference so we didn’t exactly splurge to attend that one. But it still takes time and effort to get there. The day-long Saturday event sparked lots of thinking and ideas, primarily about social media and marketing, and offered a great chance to meet local people. Specific lessons from UnSummit can be found on my personal blog.
Cultivate and Story were two church communications conferences in Chicago (OK, Story was really 40 miles outside Chicago in Aurora). And OK, I didn’t really splurge for those either–Cultivate is cheap and I scored a free ticket to Story. But Monkey Outta Nowhere did have to shell out for daycare, travel and lodging, so this wasn’t a cheap trip. I’ve been working in the church communications field since 2004 when I started editing the church communications blog Church Marketing Sucks. In that time I haven’t attended any church communications events, so this was a great chance to dive in and meet people I’ve followed online for years. Both events, though very different, had incredible content. I also share lessons from Cultivate and Story on my personal blog.
