I’ve been in the Digital Agency biz for just over 14 years now, and some people call me an expert (when I pay them enough). So, I have to beat back my ego a bit when I admit that I’m a Scott Stratten () fanboy. Put simply; I wish I could communicate the concepts and relevance of Social Media to my clients as eloquently and as passionately as Scott does.

After seeing Scott speak at a few Social Media conferences in Toronto I decided to follow him to an event in Milwaukee a few months ago; that event was the very first unGeeked e’lite event. Without any exaggeration those three days at unGeeked blew my mind. It was unlike any conference I had been to.

It wasn’t that I was presented with a bunch of facts I hadn’t heard, or because people like Chris Brogan, Olivier Blanchard, Jason Falls, and a ton of other Social Media heavy weights were there. It was because the event wasn’t a conference… it was… well… more like summer camp, like a retreat. Over the course of three days I was immersed in discussion in a personal setting. I wasn’t being spoken to like I was at every other conference or event I went to, I was engaged in conversation over breakfast, lunch, at the bar, even during presentations where the whole room stopped to chat. I was actually at a Social Media event that carried the sharing spirit of open conversation right into the real world.

Imagine that you’re an actor and that you went to an Acting conference. And there you were, not being spoken at by Tom Hanks, but chatting about the latest breathing techniques with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, as Michael Caine shares his brownie recipe with you. You’re not watching a movie, or reading a book about acting anymore – you’re sharing the stage.

I established deep relationships with so many at unGeeked that it had a profound effect on me both on a professional and personal level. Maybe it was something in the water, but by the third day I wasn’t handing out business cards… I was sharing, laughing, and dare I say hugging my fellow unGeeked.  And it wasn’t just me. This small event with only about 160 or so people managed to create so much buzz that it became a trending Twitter topic. The demand was so great that what was supposed to be a one-time event is now going to span the continent from Canada to Brazil, with several stops in-between. I take my hat off to Cd Vann (, ), the organizer of unGeeked e’lite. What she did was magic and I was touched by it.

I’m so excited that it’s coming to Toronto. Unfortunately the event is small; it’s designed to be that way because it’s immensely effective that way. I purchased my tickets for the first event very early, and I’m glad I did.

So yeah, I got to hang with Scott Stratten and chat over a burger and beer, and yeah he knows my name now. He’s even helped me out once and a while since then.  I’m still a fanboy, is that so wrong?