This year’s Seattle Interactive Conference is smokin’ hot! How hot is that? So hot in fact, it brought out the Seattle Fire Department before the start of the first session to temporarily clear out the record number of attendees before the proceedings themselves could begin to heat things up.
But after the first flare-up was contained by Seattle’s finest, things really started to sizzle!
Take the mid-morning session on Social Media and the “Arts” (Music, Comedy and Literary, the “Session Title” paraphrased.). One of the Seattle Conference Center’s largest halls had overflown its banks like Hurricane Sandy, flooded with enthusiastic SIC-revelers and raucous laughter, spurred on by an all-star panel of digital pioneers — actor-author-Daily Show comedian John Hodgman, musician/recording artist John Roderick, Writer-Podcaster Merlin Mann, musician/recording artist Jonathan Coulton, and Apple iTunes alum and stand-up aspirant Scott Simpson.
While Roderick was listed as the moderator for the session, John Hodgman quickly disabused anyone of “who was this orchestra’s conductor,” even grabbing the microphone and heading into the audience to take questions “Phil Donahue style.”
The Fire Department should have stuck around to counter these red hot zingers from the panelists:
Hodgman: “This morning we appeared on ‘New Day Northwest,’ which to me, sounds like the first “post-apocalyptic, post-Rapture 
Northwest TV Talk Show.”
“Nitpicking your words is the essence of all social media.”
“Stand up comedy is an alcoholic hobby for people who travel across the country trying to make people who hate themselves laugh.”
“That [name withheld] is a social network that is also a martial art.”
John Roderick on a New Metric: “My goal as a musician online is to try and make a living that is in some way comparable to a Small Dental Practice. If I could get to 1.2 “SPD’s” that would be beautiful.”
The main message of the session was to think about cutting through the saturation of social media noise. In this case with humor, or music or discussion in special niche forums.
“With all the noise, people are desperate for filters they can trust,” said Coulton.
Referring to his collegial presenters, Hodgman confided to the group, “We were all able to change our careers by finding an audience online.” Change! After all, that is what this conference is all about. Its title: “Gamechangers.”
Even with the light fall Seattle drizzle, this year’s SIC event is pure heat, pure sizzle and a whole lot of steak! Cuz where there’s smoke, there’s fire. [24×7]
