DPAC: Popping My Digital Conference Cherry

I have been hearing a lot about digital conferences as soon as I got into the outer fringes of twitter. I got more curious as my photography services was solicited for one of these events. As soon as I found the chance to be in one as an attendant (not as a photographer), I jumped into it. A little education, is always very good.

I liked that the conference was set up this way. Tables and chairs all facing the stage. I like that it allowed everyone to multitask as they listened to the panels.

The panels were of varied topics some of which are privacy, media strategy, brand dollars and how stay-at-home-moms IS the market. It was very informative and very much worth my time.

DPAC - Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference had sponsor booths outside the Conference Area. The giveaways are pretty cool, but since I came in here representing myself as a photographer - there were some tables who weren't too excited to tell me about what their company was about. 

Lijit was very nice to me and introduced me to their business. They are an advertising solution that runs ads and analytics. They support bloggers! Wahoo! (Thank you, Sonya!)

DPAC was an all day affair, and they fed me lunch. The choices were Chicken,  Roast Beef or Vegetarian. I picked roast beef because you cant go wrong with Roast Beef. When I saw the lunchboxes my heart sank.

Inside the box was a bottle of water, Roast Beef Sandwich, Potato Chips, Macaroni salad, Apple, Brownie and Plastic Cutlery. It was a proper picnic for one.

My initial disappointment turned to glee after the first bite off of my sandwich. It was tasty! The goat cheese wasnt overpowering and the Roasted tomatoes and shallot confit perfectly complimented it.

Roast Beef sandwich with Goat Cheese,
Roasted Tomatoes and Shallot Confit, on a Sourdough Kaiser Bun

Pesto Macaroni Salad with Peas, Carrots and Sweet Corn.

After tasting this salad, I really wished that they gave me a salad with a canape instead of a full on sandwich. This salad is so good, I want to make it at home!

Wonderfully fudgy, nutty and not too sweet. Aaah. A brownie like this is heaven-sent.

Delightfully nutty and fudgy brownie

Before you conclude that it seemed like I enjoyed the food more than the panels, to be honest the photographs would mostly be of panelists speaking - and it will be better for you to watch them here instead of looking at their mugshots.

I am quite thankful for this wonderful opportunity of attending this conference. There was a lot of marketing mumbo-jumbo during the panels - so if you are do not know what some of it is, getting the gist of it could be somewhat confusing. On the overall, it was very informative and educational. The variety of topics certainly helped in allowing me to understand what is currently going on and what will be the future of digital media.

DPAC- Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference is made possible by Digidaydaily.com , their sponsors and happened during Internet Week NY 2011.

****DISCLAIMER****
I got tickets to this event for free via a passcode. I was not given the passcode in exchange for anything. I just got lucky to get into the conference for free. A lot of NYC events tend to be free or will have a way to be free. All you need to do is pay attention, sign up for email updates and surf the web.

Everything written here is solely my opinion.