Our event on 6/13/2012 was hosted at Translator.  Beer was provided by Milwaukee Brewing Company, and pizza from Transfer Pizza was provided by Andretti Autosport.  Also, Aaron Biebert brought his crew to do some film interviews (as shown in the picture above).

The topic of the night was Experience Design for social media led by Mark Fairbanks (@markfairbanks) and Cindi Thomas (@deziner) from Translator.  Cindi and Mark took us through the journey of planning for the entire social experience that the end user will have.  Some great quotes from the night were: "Everywhere is not good, because it becomes nowhere in the eyes of your user." (concerning social sharing buttons), and "Relevant, Contextual, Spacial" (when thinking about social).

Later in the evening, Jade Gurss (@JadeGurss), Director of Corporate Communication for Andretti Autosport shared the "IndyFest 26er" program.  Andretti Autosport has been a major player in bringing Indy racing back to the Milwauke Mile, but they had a tight budget and a short timeframe.  Jade worked with Exact Target to identify and choose 26 individuals in the greater Milwaukee area who they believed were social media influencers.  The ideas was simple: Give these influencers access to the race and pair each one of them with a driver, and let the magic happen.  A few of the 26ers were in attendance for questions afterwards.