Midwest Unconference – Not Going WTF Is Up ?

by Jeremy Schoemaker on October 6, 2008 · 61 comments

I wrote and highly supported the midwest unconference taking place in chicago in a couple weeks… Only problem is nobody there is returning my emails and now I am getting emails from other people asking me if its going to happen or trying to make plans.

As much as I love to support these free or low budget events the only downside is a lot of times they flake out =(.

I had to make a decision this morning to make other plans since I have not gotten any response from the original organizers.

Hopefully they are just busy and it will still happen… but I wont be there =(

About the author...

– who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock


Mark recommends you read these posts also:

  1. asd Maybe You Should Have Given Fatty A Piece
  2. blueglass-20101012-225302 Men (And Women) Of Honor – In An Industry That Does Not Have Much
  3. trump-youre-fired How To Fire Someone

{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Danny Cooper October 6, 2008 at 6:33 am

I suppose making other arrangements was the sensible thing to do if they can’t make time to get back to you.

Reply

2 meethere October 6, 2008 at 9:43 am

you should only attend big conferences to keep your name big :D

Reply

3 Tamish October 6, 2008 at 11:13 am

The thing is top users dont talk much about other top users.
if event is small he will get all attention and gals.

Reply

4 Daniel Kemp October 6, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Do many ladies go to small free conferences?

Reply

5 Acai Berry Side Effects October 6, 2008 at 2:06 pm

why are you looking to pick up some hottie affiliates?

Reply

6 mrkbsm October 6, 2008 at 6:47 am

Hopefully their Unconference is still going to happen – the midwest can use a few good events like that. I’d actually love to see one in Omaha or KC sometime. KC is nice and central for folks flying in. And Omaha, well, that’s a short commute for Shoe!

Reply

7 Franklin Bishop October 6, 2008 at 10:14 am

You are right. The Midwest really could use some of these events. There are not a lot of them currently so would be nice to at least get one going. Too bad they weren’t acting as professionals though.

Reply

8 Buy Verizon Ringtones October 6, 2008 at 4:10 pm

What about California? Seems like there are NO events here at all! Only SHoe can afford to fly all over the country…;-)

Reply

9 Tushar Dhoot October 6, 2008 at 6:49 am

That’s sad to hear.

Good luck to the organizers of the conference anyways, it’s great for them to hold free conferences like this.

Reply

10 Nathan Driver October 6, 2008 at 6:50 am

Man that sucks there’s not a TON of conferences in the Midwest that are low cost (let alone free). Sad to see this one fall by the wayside shoe…maybe next year.

Reply

11 Ari - Laberinto Social October 6, 2008 at 9:05 am

chicago is known for throwing a lot of events in their space, but they don’t quite have the pull that the west coast does with blogging events anyway

Reply

12 CanJohn October 6, 2008 at 6:52 am

It’s a shame they havent replied as im sure it would have been quite a plus for them to have you there shoe.

Are there any good confrences and event in th UK like that? I’d love to get out there a bit more and meet some people face to face.

Reply

13 Andrei Buiu October 6, 2008 at 10:35 am

Check this one out. A4u Expo London

Reply

14 Moneybites October 6, 2008 at 6:53 am

That’s a shame, I hate it when things like that happen!

Reply

15 Zurpit October 7, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Yea its horrible when people don’t get back to you by email

Reply

16 Jason Leyanna October 6, 2008 at 6:58 am

Sorry to hear that. :-(
I wonder what happened to them.

Reply

17 Andrei Buiu October 6, 2008 at 7:09 am

Well, if nobody bothered to answer your e-mails then I see no problem in making other plans.

Reply

18 Danny Cooper October 6, 2008 at 7:26 am

Exactly what I’m saying, if I had Jeremy coming to an event I wouldn’t leave him hanging :P

Reply

19 Zurpit October 6, 2008 at 5:24 pm

I agree it would have a been a great addition to have him there

Reply

20 Franklin Bishop October 6, 2008 at 10:22 am

No kidding! It just seems so unprofessional. I don’t think anyone wanna be part of an event that is unprofessional especially Jeremy.

Reply

21 Jonclaude October 6, 2008 at 7:10 am

That is too bad find so many free tool intiernet to make money online and
no free conference to meet some others bloggers.
Any way good luck for “windy conference”…

Reply

22 River Girl October 6, 2008 at 7:47 am

Well, when things are free…
You did the right thing.

Reply

23 Daniel Kemp October 6, 2008 at 12:30 pm

Free conferences just don’t make sense to me anyways. I could see little get-togethers like what John Chow does when he goes out to eat with other bloggers, but free conferences I can’t see.

Reply

24 River Girl October 6, 2008 at 10:40 pm

Well, you get what you pay for. :-)

Reply

25 Ben - frogstr.com October 6, 2008 at 8:23 am

I guess not answering Shoe’s emails is a bad business decision… ;)

Reply

26 Suggest Products October 6, 2008 at 8:32 am

I agree with mrkbsm. Lets bring more events to the midwest ;) Then I could afford to go.

Reply

27 Adam - Creadiv.com October 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm

Ditto I live in NW Indiana so a conference in Chicago would be like a 45 minute drive for me. I would be all over it.

Reply

28 Chris October 6, 2008 at 8:47 am

I hate it when people think it’s fine to just ignore e-mails

Reply

29 Dick October 7, 2008 at 6:59 am

This is unpleasant, but it happens all the time.

Reply

30 Ari - Laberinto Social October 6, 2008 at 9:04 am

too many events to close in between i think.

Reply

31 jim October 6, 2008 at 9:22 am

How good can a conference be if it can’t even remain organized enough to get A-listers in their industry, who have already showed interest and support, an answer on scheduling.

Reply

32 Steven-Sanders October 6, 2008 at 9:44 am

I guess they just killed that unconference. Probably alot of people that were going but aren’t know because of this.

And now that they’ve ruined their rep, they will probably never be able to get it started again.

Reply

33 Vega Vaughn October 6, 2008 at 9:47 am

Did you try to call the coordinator?

Reply

34 John Kane October 6, 2008 at 11:01 am

If it wasn’t dead already you announcing your not going will most likely kill it.

Reply

35 Patrick October 6, 2008 at 11:12 am

They need to stay on top of things.

Reply

36 andrew October 6, 2008 at 11:37 am

If they can’t even bother to reply to your emails, why would you.

Reply

37 Dick October 7, 2008 at 7:03 am

It is not a good.

Reply

38 Önder October 6, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Go another activity that will be the best solution i think.

Reply

39 Acai Berry Side Effects October 6, 2008 at 12:23 pm

sounds like they need to beef up their customer support… which is probably like, one guy.

Reply

40 MouthyGirl October 6, 2008 at 12:44 pm

I am confident they’ll be kicking themselves whenever they get to your emails. What promoter wouldn’t want you in his corner?

Reply

41 Dan October 6, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Disappointing that this event doesn’t appear to be happening. I had wrote it in on my calendar but after seeing this post, I went back to get the details (venue, etc.) and found out that they haven’t updated their website since the last time I was there… looks dead to me… oh well…

Reply

42 Ben October 6, 2008 at 1:33 pm

Of all the social media people I have met, you are by far the most stand up guy. I hate flakes as much as you do, but that is the price of being Mr. Reliable. Hopefully it works out for the event. Great things happen when like minded people get together.

Some of these smaller Un-Conferences should just start as MeetUps. Less pressure and more flexibility.

Reply

43 Daniel Kemp October 6, 2008 at 2:02 pm

I totally agree with you Ben. “Conference” and “free” dont mix too well. “Meetup” and “free” mix very well.

Reply

44 atlanta wedding photographer October 6, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Sometimes these events that are free have that as the problem. Perception is the key here. Ones that cost at least something say 10.00 at the door does some good. Plus, like most things a good idea will be a bad one if you don’t excecute. There have been many times that I have got a million dollar organization saying that they would put their name on it but not knowing what i was doing of really not know what it took to get it done it went no where. As a result, those that I broght it up with will most likely be more hesitant to partner up with me b/c i didn’t follow through

Reply

45 coderbari October 6, 2008 at 2:03 pm

If they don’t reply to you that means they don’t care much about you. Why should you care? You are also a very busy man, I believe – busier than this free conference organizers.

Reply

46 SMM Guru October 6, 2008 at 2:22 pm

You would think that they would have better communication skills for an organization planning to hold such an event.

Reply

47 Haltingpoint October 6, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Well that sucks! This was supposed to be somewhere thats like 3 blocks from my office…and it was free!

I’ll still probably swing by in the hopes that it is still going on. We’ll see though.

Reply

48 Dick October 7, 2008 at 7:27 am

I would like to look at it. Unfortunately, I will be too far away.

Reply

49 Action Sports October 6, 2008 at 3:54 pm

too bad, that’s a big commitment from someone like you to go all that way and they didn’t even seize the opportunity.

Reply

50 patel October 6, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Shoe, I was just looking at the AGENDA and It has ur name under sat. oct.18th at 2:30 PM …Wtf? haha

On the other hand, I’ll probably be there so come say hi to me every1 thats going

Reply

51 Bryn Youngblut October 6, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Ah well time is money, can’t waste your time waiting around for other people.

Reply

52 Zurpit October 6, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Yea especially a busy guy like Jeremy, they should have got back to him

Reply

53 Adam - Creadiv.com October 6, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Midwest conference!?! How did I miss this and why can’t they get it set up right. I can only hope that this will eventually happen as I would love to meet some of these guys as Chicago is in my backyard.

adam

Reply

54 Zurpit October 6, 2008 at 5:21 pm

That sucks that they haven’t got back to you, its the right thing you booked other plans, its their loss

Reply

55 SEI Design Group October 6, 2008 at 10:42 pm

Unfortunate that there was no response. Customer service is really going downhill.

Reply

56 TYCP Entertainment Magazine October 7, 2008 at 12:19 am

How unprofessional, but I’m not surprised for some reason.

Reply

57 purposeinc October 7, 2008 at 3:21 am

Note to self. Answer Jeremy’s e-mails. :)

Reply

58 Chris October 7, 2008 at 8:06 am
59 Eva White October 7, 2008 at 9:57 pm

Hope they respond to you soon.

Reply

60 Maxus November 12, 2008 at 7:52 pm

I hate it when people think it’s fine to just ignore e-mails

Reply

61 Taylor Cimala November 20, 2008 at 8:48 am

I even “sponsored” this event and never heard anything when I wrote emails. Never got a response when I asked for the $$ back either, fancy that.

Reply

Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: