Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I'm off to Salt Lake City for Blogger Day at FamilySearch, and more!

Several other genea-bloggers have mentioned that they are attending the Blogger Day at FamilySearch in Salt Lake City on Thursday.  I leave on Wednesday morning and will get there after noon.  I hope to spend some time in the Family History Library on Wednesday afternoon before meeting friends for dinner.

This is the list of scheduled topics and presenters for Thursday's event to be held in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building:
  • 7:30 a.m. -- Continental breakfast
  • 8:00 a.m. -- Welcome - Paul Nauta
  • 8:05 a.m. -- Introductions: Meet fellow bloggers and FamilySearch Leadership, Colleagues - Shipley Munson
  • 8:20 a.m. -- Who is FamilySearch? How to think about us - Jay Verkler
  • 9:00 a.m. -- RootsTech: A very different kind of genealogy conference - Anne Roach, Ann Harrison
  • 9:40 a.m. -- Volunteer Indexing: Unlocking the world’s records one name at a time - Jim Ericson
  • 10 a.m. - Break
  • 10:15 a.m. -- Family History Library/FamilySearch Centers: Real discoveries and grass roots learning - Don Anderson
  • 10:35 a.m. -- FamilySearch Online Research Courses: Bringing the teacher to you - Travis Jordan
  • 10:55 a.m. -- Q&A Discussion
  • 11:15 a.m. -- Wiki: Community knowledge, by the community, for the community, 24/7 - Diane Loosle.
  • 11:45 a.m. -- Forums: Reference consultants you can “take home” - Anne Roach
  • 12 noon -- Working Lunch/Discussion/Q&A/Networking (eating and talking fast!)
  • 12:30 p.m. -- FamilySearch Software Community: Collaborating technology to increase the frequency of patron successes - Gordon Clarke
  • 12:50 p.m. -- Digitally preserving personal family histories - Gary Wright
  • 1:10 p.m. -- Discussion/Q and A
  • 1:30 p.m. -- FamilySearch Family Tree: On the horizon - Ron Tanner
  • 2:15 p.m. -- Break/Discussion
  • 2:45 p.m. -- FamilySearch Records Access: Upcoming Collections: Millions weekly and climbing - Stephen Valentine
  • 3:15 p.m. -- The Next Generation FamilySearch.org - Dan Lawyer
  • 4 p.m. -- FamilySearch Catalog 2.0 - Dan Lawyer
  • 4:15 p.m. -- Open Discussion, Q and A
  • 5 pm. -- Free time
  • 6 p.m. -- Hosted dinner.
Whew - that is going to be a mental and physical challenge to cover and recall, even with notes!  Thank goodness for several breaks. 

Some genea-bloggers may tweet some or all of the conference (with FamilySearch's permission, which is wonderful), so interested genealogists may be able to follow some of the conversations.  Look for a hashtag on tweets of genea-bloggers in attendance - it may be #FSBlogDay if we can remember it!

If I survive that challenge, then I will spend Friday at the Family History Library and do some research.  I listed some of my research targets in my post Off to Salt Lake City next week - what should I do?


I will have my laptop with me, and will try to blog and tweet as best I can, considering the time challenges. 

There look like there are plenty of time slots for questions and answers - what questions would you like asked at the FamilySearch Bloggers Day?  Email me before Wednesday night (rjseaver@cox.net) with questions and tell me which category they fit into.  I will try to ask them and report back the answers.

I appreciate FamilySearch's efforts to reach out to the genea-bloggers community, and honored to be included in this august group.  I look forward to interacting with the FamilySearch personnel, few of whom I have met previously. 

Disclosure:  FamilySearch is paying for my airline travel, hotel accommodations for three nights, incidental expenses and several meals on Thursday.  I will make every effort to be objective about what I hear and learn and write about during and after the event.

3 comments:

Suemax said...

Randy, the great food just might sway your opinion! ;) See you there!

Darlene said...

Sue, I can see Randy enjoying that great food, then providing his excellent but unbiased opinion. And Randy, I am forwarding a question to you regarding indexing. I certainly hope you have a moment to address the question if it were one that you deem necessary to ask.

Whether you get the chance to ask or not, thanks so much for the offer.

Darlene

Becky Thompson said...

FamilySearch is PAYING for all this????? Whew! Lucky you.