Year 4 of ConvergeSE is in the books. It took place at the wonderful IT-oLogy space and was also part of the two week long Indie Grits Festival. Every year we do this thing I’m blown away more each time, this year was no exception, you people are all truly great!

Kick Off

Thursday night we kicked it all off early with a live recording of the Kick Awesome Show. Which I have to say Jon and Nate did a great job of entertaining us and making the evening very welcoming. They invented a game called Thumpersanding™ which involves two people thumb-wrestling while simultaneously attempting to draw an ampersand on a piece of paper that is taped to the other person’s chest with their off-hand. Carl Smith (@carlsmith) royally kicked my butt in our haphazard matchup.

Friday Workshops

There was a full day of workshops on Friday (or at least that’s what we’re calling them) and a second day of keynote style talks that ranged from 30 minutes to 10 minutes in length. On Saturday Leslie Jensen-Inman (@jenseninman) kicked off Converge for us this year with a really nice welcome keynote. I like to set the tone early and boy did she get things set for us with her “Make Awesomeness” call to action. I think Chris Harrison’s tweet really sums it up for me best:

If you left @ConvergeSE without feeling you’re not doing enough awesome in the world, you’re doing it wrong. #ConvergeSE

— Chris Harrison (@cdharrison) May 1, 2012

The mobile workshop sessions were the first to sell out and also had the most limited seating, we’ll be fixing that next year, with the Front-End Dev sessions having had the most attendees. We were lucky enough to be able to sell some extra seats at the last minute because of holding the Front-End Dev sessions in the main auditorium. Having all the extra people there on Friday morning kinda made the place feel cramped as it was standing room only but dang it looked cool to me!

Friday night there was an mid-conference-party at the Art Bar where Grasshopper was gracious enough to buy us all drinks. The real entertainment was outside where Alternacirque gave a performance, yes, fire jugglers, glass eaters and trapeze artists.

Saturday Keynotes

Saturday was the main event featuring a kick-off keynote with Leslie Jensen-Inman & Carl Smith, then other talks by: J Cornelius, Kyle Steed, Faruk Ates, Samantha Warren, Jeff Croft, Jenn Downs, Robyn Tippins, Jonathan LeBlanc, Jonathan Snook, Wren Lanier and finally Steve Smith. They were all just fantastic and unlike Friday where I personally had to miss each workshop, I got to be in there for every speaker which is a huge fringe benefit for me.

After the team and I snagged a quick dinner we made it over to the after party, which was part of the Indie Grits festival at the Berringer Building. Which was an old closed down bank that they opened up just for the party. With good drinks, food (they had BBQ pork!), movie karaoke and a photo booth the party was a good one. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I could tell others did too. A big thank you is in order for Carl Smith and nGen Works for putting money behind the bar and buying us all drinks for the entire evening.

Thank You!

There are a lot of thank you’s that need to be said, i’m sure i’ll miss someone here, this isn’t meant to be exhaustive. Next time we see you i’ll get Giovanni to give you a big old hug. But i’d like to thank the sponsors that help make Converge happen, not just this year but every year and they are: Mailchimp, nGen Works, Wufoo, Harvest, Grasshopper, Sticker Mule and our new sponsors for 2012: Media Temple, the Simple App Group (they couldn’t make it and I’m really bummed to not meet ya!), TM Floyd, Scout Books and Moo to name just a few. Thank you all so very much! Last but not least, the superb Indie Grits Festival, thank you for letting Converge be a part of your awesomeness!

This will be sloppy, you’ve been warned:
Big big thank you’s to all the volunteers that helped out, super big props to Chris Harrison (@cdharrison) who live tweeted the entire conference, both days, as the official Converge twitterer – that stuff’s not easy folks. To Jay, Giovanni, Jason, Maria, Greg, Jed, Steve, my awesome wife Sarah, all the other UnmatchedStyle crew, the AIGA South Carolina peeps and all our other good friends you are what makes this happen and Converge thanks you for taking the time to do such a wonderful job.

I hope to see all of you in Columbia, SC again in 2013!

PS: Here’s a quick survey if you came to Converge this year and have something to share. Please do!