The second annual Small Town 140 Characters Conference will be held in Hutchinson, Kansas at the Historic Fox Theatre on September 20. Speakers will be coming from a dozen states and one foreign country. “Kansas Magazine” listed the conference as one of the Top Twenty Things to Love about Kansas.
The focus of the 140 Characters Conference is how real-time technology, such as Twitter and Facebook, is changing business, agriculture, media, education, sports and celebrity. Jeff Pulver, the founder, says, “The take-aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects Twitter will have on business.” The all-day event will be streamed live on the internet.
Pulver started the 140 Character Conferences in June of 2009 with an event in New York. Other 140 Characters Conferences have been held in London, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. The first small-town one was held in Hutchinson last year and during the event Pulver committed to bringing it back this year. The only events Pulver will attend this year are in New York, Tel Aviv, and Hutchinson.
Becky McCray, a small town entrepreneur from Alva, Oklahoma, was instrumental in encouraging development of the first small town 140 Character Conference. McCray says “Small town people and rural people are a lot more technologically savvy than anyone gives us credit for. We use the same tools and technology available to everybody else. Sometimes broadband access is an issue and we continue to work on improving it. Most of us have great access and use this technology as well as or better than any one from L.A. or London. It’s reshaping small towns just as much as it’s reshaping big cities.”
Pulver says there is no dividing line of population. “We want to include small towns and rural areas, outlying suburbs and exurbs. Plus, plenty of people who live in a big city have some important small town connection, whether that’s where you grew up, where you plan to move, where your parents came from, or where your clients are.”
An entrepreneur, Pulver co-founded Vonage, and was listed as a Tech Guru by Business Week. He is the chief writer of what is called the “Pulver Order,” adopted by the Federal Communications Commission as its first ruling regarding Internet Protocol communications.
Speakers at the 140 Character Conference will present in 10 or 15 minute segments. The day will move quickly and many voices will be heard. People will be sharing what’s heard at the conference on Twitter, using what’s called a “hashtag” of “#140conf.” Twitter users all over the world will be able to search for #140conf and see everything being written from Hutchinson, Kansas in real time.
Pulver explains that, “these events provide a platform for the worldwide Twitter community to listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business. It creates serendipity in talking to each other, sharing ideas across industries, and exchanging thoughts with people like you and not like you. To put it in rural terms, we’re going to cross-pollinate some ideas. Or think of it as hybrid vigor: your new ideas are much stronger than the ideas that brought them about.”
For more information, go to https://patsyterrell.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5ab2748c5baff131c5217ec00&id=a0e767e6b0&e=bbffbe616c.