My Thoughts on the Social Good Summit

Whew! Last weekend was the 3rd Annual Social Good Summit in New York City and boy, was it an inspiring, emotional, thought-provoking, frustrating, and engaging three days!

Bloggers hard at work at the Social Good Summit's Digital Media Lounge

 
The weekend was also hectic and exhausting! I arrived in the bustling Digital Media Lounge each day by 11 in the morning and didn't leave until after 7 at night with almost no break in between. Scores of bloggers and independent journalists were tapping away on their devices from morning to night. I have never seen so many people using Twitter all at once before.

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice speaks to Mashable founder Pete Cashmore

The most impressive aspect of the Social Media Summit was the sheer scope of the participants involved. In addition to the average concerned citizen in attendance (both physically and virtually) from over 153 countries, we had top political figures, internationally renowned journalists, successful businessmen and women, celebrity activists, and well, some really cool movers and shakers in the social media and technology world. I was geeking out in the best way possible with some of the world's best geeks. I felt incredibly lucky, and honored, to have been a part of it.

A highly connected audience listens while surprise guest Peter Gabrial speaks at the Social Good Summit in New York City

I was most disappointed in the actual "global conversation" that took place. Rather, that DIDN'T take place as a huge majority of tweets and retweets flowing in through the #SGSglobal hashtag were quotes and sound bites from the speakers. There wasn't much interaction in the way of people discussing the issues the speakers raised. I tried to start conversations by posing a number of questions during the presentations, but most of my Tweets fell on deaf ears or in this case, silent fingers.

So much of the hype leading up to the Social Good Summit was surrounded by the impression that there would be conversation taking place internationally about the issues brought forth at the Summit. I was truly disappointed by the lack of engagement amongst the global audience and the one question that kept popping up in my head was, "Where's the dialogue?"

Despite the lack of sharing and discussing between participants, the talks and presentations on stage were nothing short of phenomenal. (I'll be updating a new blog post with my favorite highlights from the Social Media Summit in the coming days so be sure to check back for what I thought were some truly relevant, moving, and significant topics.)

Overall, the Social Good Summit was an amazing experience to see and hear so many influential people discussing their work and what more they hope to achieve with the help of social media and technology. It just would have been nice to hear what other people around the world were thinking and to have put my two cents into the pot as well.

© Connie Hum 2012