Silicon Prairie News just put up a blog post with the video from the evening panel at the Kauffman Foundation for Highlight Midwest.

If you were unable to attend the event this is a great way to see some great presentations as well as some insight from a panel that was full of people from around the midwest.

Kansas City Presentation

Des Moines Presentation

Omaha Presentation

Evening Panel (Part 1)

Evening Panel (Part 2)

Silicon Prairie News recently posted the video and a story about Carl Schramm President and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation and his appearance at Highlight Midwest in October.

In my ongoing series I was able to us my flip camera to catch their presentation at Highlight Midwest. The presenter was Chase Hawkins of Swindlr.

For my second presentation from Highlight Midwest I have on from Christina Maki of The Social Lites who did one titled - "Messages, Membership, and Money: Growing Your Non-Profit With Social Media."

Some great advice for all the non-profit organizations out there. Check out her presentation below.

Note : I noticed after I posted the video that on the intro screen of the video I have Socialites when it should be Social Lites. just wanted to note the mistake.

update : i fixed the spelling mistake in the video.

This past week I had a chance to go to the first Highlight Midwest (and sure not to be the last) here in Kansas City which highlighted developers, entrepreneurs, social media, new media, ect. in the Midwest (mainly KC, Omaha, and Des Moines) in an effort to bring the community together and show the midwest is more the just a bunch of flyover states for the east and west coast.

The end result was it was a total 100% success....I met all kinds of great people from throughout the region getting to see some great projects in the works, ideas of the future, and was able to network and add some new people to follow throughout the interweb.

As I had mentioned early this is clearly an event that will happen again and you can bet I will be there...already there is some great media out there highlighting the events of the day including pictures, video, and blogs. I thought I would highlight some of them here in the post as well as I plan to post some videos up here on the site of some of the presentations I went to as well for you to enjoy. I hope to get my hands of the video from the panel at the evening session and share atleast a link if not the video embedded (keep your eyes out for that).

Blog posts about Highlight Midwest
Highlight Midwest - by Christina Maki
What I Learned At Highlight Midwest - Troy Rutter

Highlight Midwest Flickr stream
Pics or it didnt happen - pics of the evening panel by Christina Maki

Check out the recorded live stream by LiveCrunch

Another kool part of the evening session was some suprise videos from a few familiar faces....

Sarah Lacy's Highlight Midwest Introduction from Highlight Midwest on Vimeo.

Chris Pirillo's Highlight Midwest Introduction from Highlight Midwest on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuck's Highlight Midwest Introduction from Highlight Midwest on Vimeo.

In closing I just want to thank everyone who was in charge of the planning of this event, thank you to all those who came not only from the kc area but for those who traveled from omaha and des moines, and thank you to all those who are out there in those cities and others in the midwest showing that the midwest is a place where tech/social media can be born and can have the same impact of those from both coasts!

After all the events were over and we were all traveling back to our homes and such the question was asked where do we go from here? What do we do to keep this great thing called Highlight Midwest going? How do we help it grow even more?

We’re following each other on twitter now, let’s take that a step further and start reading each other’s blogs. Do a little exploring on people’s twitter profiles and find blogs/sites that interest you. Add at least a few of the people from each city to your RSS reader.

1. Don’t just subscribe, but commit to reading their blogs.
2. Don’t just read, take it up a notch by commenting on their blogs.
3. Don’t just comment, share their blogs with your network by tweeting about their posts.
4. Don’t just talk up their blogs, ask them to do a guest post on your blog.
5. Shake it well, repeat.

What can you do to help the midwest tech community grow and become even better!

Think about it.

First I would like to thank the gang over at the Highlight Midwest team for making me the New Media Correspondent for the event.  Hoping to be able to proved those attending as well as those unable to attend the event.  Along with getting some video footage of all the activities I decided to put a little stream togather pulling information from sources all over the interweb.

My Highlight Midwest Stream (includes)

* blog posts (grabbed using google blog search)
* twitter posts (tag your tweets with '#hm1' to be included)
* flickr pics (tag your pics related to the event with 'highlightmidwest')
* del.icio.us links (tag your links 'highlightmidwest')

that is it for now.  if you can think of another service people will be using to tag this event let me know and I will add it to the stream.

Enjoy

Here in just a few weeks Hightlight Midwest will be taking place in the Kansas City area and besides spreading the word, blogging, tweeting, podcasting, and whatever else to promote it there is now a HM Badge you can throw up on your site or blog to invite your readers/vistors to join in this great event.

Nathan Wright from over at Lava Row created this for everyone to use...so add it to your blog and let everyone know they should come join the party on Oct 29th.

There is a HUGE event coming to the Kansas City area Wednesday October 29th in Kansas City, MO. called Highlight Midwest. What exactly is Highlight Midwest you ask?

Highlight Midwest showcases the entrepreneurs, innovators, and early-adopters using web technology to grow their businesses, advance their careers, and enrich the regional economy in new ways.

Three of the area’s up and coming social media strategists will present an overview on how the web is changing their cities for the better and how new opportunities for innovation are expanding the importance of web-based technology in the Midwest.

Focused highlights: 9:00am - 4:00pm at the Record Bar Some of the region’s finest entrepreneurs, technologists, social media experts, and new media success stories presenting.

I am really excited for this event as it is a great way to find out some of the great projects going on in our area, meet some of the people behind those projects, network, and overall just meet others that have similar likes and interests in the tech community.

Talking to some of the organizers of the event they are wanting to get some social media exposure at the event as well so if you are interested in maybe talking about a project you have in the works or just wanna talk about the social media landscape here in the midwest or all over definately feel free to contact the gang over at the Highlight Midwest site.

For me events like this are just great ways to mingle and learn about different aspects in our area from develpment types, social media types, and pretty much hanging with the geeks from around the midwest. I will say it is looking like I will probably be doing some video stuff for the event, live blogging/twittering, and of course geeking out hehe.

I hope everyone is able to attend and by all means lets get some great discussions going while we are there about new technologies, new services you are really into, the emerging mobile web, social media topics, ect. the ideas are endless and stuff like that will just enhance the event.

Below is a little information on the event to give you an idea of what is going on at this time. I hear there is more and more stuff being added as planning continues upto the 29th.

Reasons for having Hightlight Midwest

* To highlight the best and the brightest web-related success stories in the Midwest
* To connect nearby communities
* To demonstrate local innovation in a rapidly changing economic landscape

Focused highlights include (more to be added soon)

The region’s [Kansas City, Omaha, and Des Moines] finest entrepreneurs, technologists, social media experts, and new media success stories.

* Fresh Ideas, Sharp Angles, Zachary Cobb
* Infegy’s Social Radar, Adam Coomes
* Leveraging Amazon’s FPS, Jon Crawford
* A Better City Web Site, Dusty Davidson
* Myriad Tech for the Enterprise, Ryan Flannagan
* Sustainable Giving through Real Estate, Joe Frost
* The Formulator’s Search Engine, Bruce Ianni
* Comics on Rails, Scott Kahler
* Introducing Urbata, Dan Melton
* Humanoid Robotic Demonstration, Mike Overstreet
* Bringing a Japanese Phenomenon West, Elissa Rose
* Sojern Demonstration, Matt Secoske
* Scalability from the Start, Matt Secoske
* Tiovivo, Pete Thomas

Where can I check out all these great presentations and network with everyone?

** Reception: 5pm-8pm
Kauffman Conference Center
dinner and cocktails provided

4801 Rockhill Rd
Kansas City, MO 64110

Get Directions
(816) 932-1000

[View Map]

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** Focused Highlights: 9am-4pm
lunch provided

The Record Bar

1020 Westport Rd
Kansas City, MO 64111

Get Directions
(816) 753-5207

[View Map]

Updates on Highlight Midwest on the Interweb

Blog
Twitter

REGISTER : Make sure you register for both events to ensure you have a seat available

So do you plan to attend? Maybe you are doing a presentation or discussion? Let me know your thoughts on the event or what you might like to see added. Comment away and see you there!