Brand Camp University | Personal Branding 2.0 - Hajj Flemings

Why did we choose to expand the Brand Camp 2.0 – Personal Branding Conference to the New York City (NYC) market? Location. Location. Location. You hear this word used over and over in real estate, but how important is location in creating a success conference experience?

Paul Graham founder of Y Combinator and one of the top tech VCs on the planet addressed the following question in 2006, Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it? His response was, “What it takes are the right people. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from Silicon Valley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley.”

This is the catalyst for selecting the NYC market and having a good friend and strategic partner named Peter Shankman who lives there as well didn’t hurt.

The mission of Brand Camp University is to create experiences in cities with entrepreneurs, startups and intrepreneurial thinkers and tap into the intellectual capital in that region.

History

Brand Camp was birthed in Detroit in 2008 and has grown to become the largest personal branding conference in the Midwest serving 300 attendees annually. Detroit is a gritty, blue-collar town that was the Silicon Valley of its day. Detroit is going through a transformation of rethinking its city brand and diversifying its economy. We used the creative DNA of the city and designed the conference programming around the people that we serve in that region.

As we look to expand Brand Camp and to take it to new markets there were a few specific things really stood out.

Four Reasons the New York City (NYC) was Right

• The Hustle – the work ethic of New Yorkers is legendary as well as the entrepreneurial spirit.
• Great Universities – The New York City area has a great system of fine Universities: Columbia, NYU, Parsons, NYIT, Alvin Ailey, and Fordham University to name a few.
• Silicon Alley – There is a very strong vibrant startup community. According to Mayor Bloomberg at TechCrunch Disrupt Conference (2010) he stated that VC funding increased by 19% for the 1^st quarter of 2010 while Silicon Valley funding has decreased. Unofficial NYC Startup List (136 NYC Tech Startups) doesn’t include tech companies that have been formed: http://startupalley.net/nyc-startup-list)

• The density of great minds – There is great intellectual density in NYC; the city has a population of 8.4M people. New York City is the largest U.S. city by an order of 2, the second closest is Los Angeles at 3.8M people. What is the more important aspect of a conference the speakers or the attendees? Is it the chicken or the egg? This has allowed us to pull our speakers directly from the NYC area, which is a first for us.

Brand Camp –’11 – NYC

Will take place at the historical, Riverside Theatre in New York, NY. We choose this venue because we wanted to create an experience; this is the first time we have moved from a university setting. We know that an environment is extremely important to get people to create cool stuff and to rethink old paradigms.

Speakers

• Hajj Flemings (@Hajjflemings) – Founder of Brand Camp/gokit
• Peter Shankman (@PeterShankman) – Founder of HARO/The Geek Factory
• Tamsen Fadal (@tamsenfadal) - TV Anchor - WPIX (New York)
• Greg Clayman (@Clayman) – Publisher of The Daily (iPad Newspaper)
• Amanda Steinberg (@AmandaSteinberg) – Founder/CEO of DailyWorth
• Dayna Steele (@DaynaSteele) - Fast Company Blogger/Author of Rock to the Top
• Baratunde Thurston (@Baratunde) - Director of Digital at The Onion

Registration Information

Conference Registration: http://bcnyc.eventbrite.com

Early Bird Registration Ends: 04/20