Find Us All Over The Web

We take part in plenty of social media sites (find us on tumblr, twitter, facebook, flickr, Upcoming, and LinkedIn), but that’s not what makes a community. Social media creates opportunities for a community to express itself online, but it is the energy and intentions of the people involved that creates the heart and soul.

It’s Made Out of People

A snapshot of the Summit Series Community, taking part in what Molly Holzschlag dubbed our "fascinating little experiment":

These are scenes from The CSS Summit, held July 18, 2009.

• we bring together people that otherwise couldn't have made the journey (our farthest-away registrant was from Malaysia),
• we make room for people that aren't part of the traditional web conference crowd (our youngest registrant was 12 years old),
• we offer a conference alternative for people who just can't spare the expense and hassle involved in traveling (new parents, students, one-person creative teams, and so forth), and
• we manage to share all this knowledge and insight with our attendees without racking up all those pesky CO₂ emissions (over 43,000 lbs. of CO₂ were saved by holding The CSS Summit online, to be exact).

A couple of other great things came out of the CSS Summit, too:

• The University of Cincinnati graciously allowed us to use their super-fast campus-wide broadband connection, and in exchange we allowed students, staff and faculty to attend a live screening of the Summit for free, and
• A portion of our proceeds benefit the Children's Organ Transplant Association.

Overall, the Summit Series is having an immediate impact on the education of Web teams all over the world. Attendees get top-shelf presenters and information, and our presenters reach people they couldn't otherwise meet.

Our In Control Web Workshop Conferences bring people together in a more traditional conference model. Attendees spend two days together, learning from some of the Web’s brightest designers and developers.

There are a number of factors that set In Control apart from the rest of the conference crowd:

• Longer, workshop-style sessions allow speakers and attendees to delve more deeply into the material,
• Capping attendance (usually under 100 people) creates more opportunities for attendees to interact with each other and with the speakers in a meaningful way, and
• We hold the conferences in cities that are off of the traditional conference circuit. Like The Summit Series, this creates an alternative for those who might not have the time or means to travel to a larger city.