I attended the Highlight Midwest conference this last Wednesday and had the pleasure of filling in as emcee for the event. This is the first time this conference has been held and was what I considered a complete success! Highlight Midwest was based around these goals:

• 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

Highlight Midwest targeted the region’s [Kansas City, Omaha, and Des Moines] finest entrepreneurs, technologists, social media experts, and new media success stories. The turnout was very good for a conference that was put together in 9 weeks. There were entrepreneurs from four different states including Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. Social media played a big part in communications for Highlight Midwest and the word spread quickly. The event was completely sold out!

The conference was broken up into two events, the “Focused Highlight” sessions during the day and the evening “New Heights For Flyover States” reception and panel discussion. The daytime events were held at the Record Bar in the Westport area of Kansas City while the evening reception was held at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center.

The daytime venue at the Record Bar was a little “cozy” but I found that this fostered a lot more interactions among the conference attendees which really made for a very social event. Three presentation areas were setup and the full schedule kept each area busy. Each session was a half hour in length. There were many great presentations and I really liked the fact that there was such a diverse group of entrepreneurs and projects. The venue did allow attendees to easily go from one presentation to another which is always encouraged at any “unconference” event. The Record Barserved up a great little buffet for lunch while everyone was entertained by the musical group, The Threes. After the afternoon sessions we were entertained by Jason Walsmith of the group The Nadas and once again The Threes.

The evening reception and panel discussion was at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center. This was a nice upscale conference center and we were presented with various hors devoures and wine, beer or soda to drink. One of the features for the night was presentations from entrepreneurs according to city. Kansas City, Omaha and Des Moines were all represented. All three presentations were very good and covered a lot about being entrepreneurs and the use of social media.

The main event was a panel discussion about entrepreneurship emcee’d by the Kauffman Foundations’s Vice President of Entrpeneurshiup, Bo Fishback. Bo asked various questions about entrpeneurship, startups and social media. The panel consisted of entrepreneurs and social media experts from all three cities. The panel had some great discussions in response to the questions. An excellent eveing all around.

Overall I felt this conference went very well and provided a lot of information for the attendees. The conference did very well at bringing together entrepeneurs and social media experts from cities around the Midwest. The presentations at the conference highlighted that the Midwest does have a lot of intelligent, innovative people that are creating truly innovative projects.