It’s been over a week since the first Social Capital Conference took place in Ottawa. I had the privilege of being asked by Lara Wellman to sit on the 2011 planning committee with five other very talented people.  After months of hard work the day was finally upon us.  And how did it go?

I think extremely well!  Based on feedback we’ve been hearing, tweets and blog posts and especially the follow up that we’ve seen from attendees, year one was something to write about.  Attendees have been using what they learned, processing the information and taking their ideas to action.  I love hearing about the action and the ‘what happened next’ stories.

Sure, there were the usual event glitches (I’ve been planning events for over 10 years and this is an inevitable it seems) although when you are on the planning committee these glitches don’t go unnoticed and stress you out much more than most people.  But these were ones that can be overcome and learned from.

The learning (it was a learn-a-thon after all) and strength of community shone through, and that’s what I took away from Social Capital.  I met people that I don’t always have a chance to meet, I heard about ways that people, brands and businesses are using social media, or how I can use it personally to improve the function of my blog.

I heard about Ottawa as an online community – impressive to say the least.  But that’s the community I live in (offline and online) and seeing people come together to discuss real ideas and real movements was exhilarating.

Not only was I impressed with the networking/connecting part of the conference, but my to-do list is longer now thanks to Social Capital.  I have ideas swirling in my head to apply to my own online experiences.  And that to me is what a conference should be about – a learned take away.

Thanks to everyone who supported us in year one – take a list of the sponsors and speakers who were instrumental in keeping things moving.  Follow the #socapott hashtag on Twitter for updates during the year.

Congrats Ottawa, you helped make this a success.  But I can’t say I expected much less from our amazing city.

I also was able to speak at the conference about Blog Monetization and did a round table on Twitter.  I will post more information about that in the upcoming weeks.