Thursday was an early start as it was the first of the Keynotes. Today’s speaker was Brandon Stanton. In case you don’t know who he is he is the photographer/blogger who started Humans of New York.
He was a very inspirational speaker and told us how he got started and how nervous he was about taking his first picture as part of his project. He sold a picture to a friend to get money to move to New York and gave up his job in finance. He is now living his passion.
I got the opportunity to interview him back at the Media Hub and asked him if he had any connection to the sites that have popped up similar to Humans of New York. There are others like Humans of Toronto and Humans of Dublin. He said he didn’t and wasn’t happy with some that seemed to be doing it for different reasons.
You can watch his Keynote and other live streaming sessions here.
Thursday’s Keynote was sponsored by MyHeritage so we got updates on what they were doing and how their site was expanding. They have started a program called DNAQuest to give free DNA Kits to adoptees searching for their birth families. Since RootsTech has ended they have come out with lots of new improvements to their DNA site.
Once I had finished my interview with Brandon Stanton I went to see about some sessions. Again the lines ups were long and I decided to wander the Expo Hall and learn more about some of the new vendors. My discoveries will be found in a separate blog post.
I had one lab today and it was Story Telling for Posterity with Podcasting. This was one I was really looking forward to attending as podcasting is something I have been thinking about venturing into. Unfortunately the speaker didn’t show up because of a communication mix up.
The RootsTech people were very apologetic and told us to go to Customer Service to either get a refund or sign up for the same lab being offered on Friday. The people at Customer Service were fantastic and had already heard about the problem by the time I got there. Since this was one I was very interested in I decided to sign up for the Friday offering.
Kudos to the RootsTech staff for their handling of this situation. They did a fantastic job.
Thursday evening I went out with some friends and had the opportunity for some catch up time with them.
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