OUR SWOMfest '08 site

SWOMfest '08 was a blast. Yeah, it was smack in the middle of the worst economic news since the Great Depression (wtf?), but we had a great turnout. A big thank-you to all of our inaugural attendees.

Another big thank-you to our sponsor-partners: Dell, Blue Avocado, Young & Free Texas, Flying Dog Brewery, Luna Park Events, and Fotobooth.

To catch yourself up on the conference that was, here are some quick links and factoids:

• Pre-conference party photos
• Daylong conference photos
• 90% of SWOMfest '08 attendees would recommend SWOMfest to their friends and colleagues
• 97% of SWOMfest '08 attendees would attend SWOMfest '09
• Download a PDF of Yaphet Smith's slides here
• Minute-by-minute Twitter tweets by conference attendees
• Geoff Knox wrote a great SWOMfest '08
• Our comprehensive wrap-up post on Church of the Customer

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Watch SWOMfest '08 presentations

--> Download Yaphet Smith's slides (PDF)

Note: For the video, we used cellphone-based streaming technology. THX it's not. The quality of the video and audio was dependent on the strength of the cell signal at the time of broadcast.

What's SWOMfest about?

SWOMfest is a conference and party for the members and friends of the Society for Word of Mouth, the social network dedicated to helping companies and brands build word of mouth into the DNA of their organizations.

Our 2008 event was dedicated to understanding the building blocks of grassroots-driven word of mouth:

• Discovering your company's purpose. Are you in business to make money or to make money and change the world? You'll get an inside look at how companies and brands with a strong purpose and cause grow through inspired word of mouth and evangelism.
• Telling your company's story. How can you tell the story of your company, or product, in a way that makes it easy for others to spread it? We'll venture beyond the realm of traditional PR and give you the tools to think about building and telling a buzzworthy story.
• Understanding networks and communities. Paying people to secretly spread buzz within networks is unethical. Some say it's evil. It's against the law in some countries. How, then, does your company's purpose and story spread through networks and communities? In this session, we'll jump into the cultural science of understanding networks and how information spreads and why.