What do you get when you add the snow industry’s top social media minds, the social media game’s biggest players, Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Resort fresh on the tail of a 20-foot dump, MC Hammer, and a whole lot of extra curricular activities? An EpicMix of great ideas, takeaways, and a visionary look at the future of the ski and snowboard industry that was the third annual Tahoe Snowcial.
Organized by One to One Interactive, the event, held January 6-9, 2011, brought together nearly 150 industry freaks and geeks to hear a stacked line up of speakers including Path CEO Dave Morin, who also helped launch a little company called Facebook, Gowalla Co-founder Josh Williams, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz, and a a bevvy of other brains to look at the changing face of the social sport that is skiing and riding and how we can better leverage emerging social tools to connect people on the hill.
The event definitely stepped up the conversations for the conference offering everything from a look at combining neuroscience and marketing from Buyology, Inc.’s Dr. Duncan Berry, to an insightful study of the arctic-Cougar (yeah, that kind) by Nine By Blue’s Laura Lippay in the Snowcial Lightning Round, a set of five-minute presentations that ran the gamut from what Curious George taught Freeskier‘s Matt Harvey to why Heckler Magazine Founder And Sacramento Press’s Sonny Mayugba is a loser.
The gathering made for a great way for Vail Resorts to showcase its EpicMix program, which allows riders to passively check in at all lifts using RF chips in their passes, track their day online, and share their locations using Facebook and Twitter in real time. The application was highlighted with a contest to get attendees better acquainted with its capabilities and pin-based reward system, similar to Gowalla badges – and it works. Really well. Let’s just say I’ve never ridden all of a resort’s lifts in a day, but I came really close on Saturday, and Heavenly is definitely not small.
With ski area representatives on hand from across the country, and industry members from around the world, the discussion of how apps like this will revolutionize the industry in the next decade were compelling, and ranged from turning people off from tech-overload, to keeping them better connected with resorts and brands long after leaving the lift.
“We just started social networking five years ago,” says Path CEO Dave Morin, whose latest venture is similar to Facebook but only allows you to have your top-50 friends connected. “We have no idea what’s going to happen. We use to always say at Facebook that we have no idea what we’re doing here. What’s going to happen when everyone is connected to everyone else everywhere?”
Serious food for thought.
Add in a call to keep Snowcial weird, which was heeded with liberal beer shoeing, Icing, MC Hammer dance offs, and the late night madness unique to Stateline, and our brain will be mulling for months, our liver healing for weeks, and our social network expanding for a lifetime.
TAGS: dave morin, facebook, gowalla, josh williams, mc hammer, ok go, ski industry, Snow EXPOSUREmeter, snowboard industry, social media
