Archive for the ‘Tradeshows and Conventions’ Category

Genealogical Jamboree

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

What do Genealogists and ScanDigital have in common?

We are both passionate about preserving family history!

SCGS+Genealogy+JamboreeLast month, I went to the Southern California Genealogical Jamboree with other members of the ScanDigital team. While there, we had the opportunity to connect with people passionate about researching and preserving their family history and share our service as an aid to their archival projects. Genealogists may love viewing, sharing and learning about their family’s history, but many admitted that scanning and organizing their memorabilia is their least favorite part. Maybe that’s why so many people seemed relieved to hear about ScanDigital- we do all the hard, time consuming work for them. We chatted with and introduced our company to lots of new people, met with well-known genealogists and had a great time.

maureenWe had the chance to meet with some pretty amazing people while at the show. One being Maureen Taylor, otherwise famously known as the ‘Photo Detective.’ She specializes in analyzing old photos, finding missing photos, interpreting unidentified pictures and organizing photo collections. And in the Genealogical World, she’s quite famous. People were on waiting lists for her lectures and lined up at her booth to have her analyze specific photos. For more information on Maureen, visit the Photo Detective.

dearmyrtleI also had the opportunity to sneak away from our booth to attend DearMyrtle’s lecture titled ‘3 Months to Better Organization.’ Myrtle is also very well known in the Genealogy World and I was lucky enough to find one of the last available seats. Her lecture was jam packed!

Her talk was very interactive as she gave the audience ‘challenges’ or tasks to help themselves get their collections more organized. One of Myrtle’s tasks was related to the importance of having your old photos scanned and home movies converted to digital format. It was so nice to have such a highly regarded person not only recognize the importance of digital preservation, but rather preach this message to her audience.

When this ‘task’ was assigned, a couple audience members even shouted out ‘ScanDigital’ as a way to offer our service as a suggestion! How flattering!

DearMyrtle provides fantastic advice for Genealogists and her website was even ranked one of the top ‘101 Best Webs Sites in 2009’ in Family Tree Magazine. If you are interested in learning more about gathering and organizing your family history, definitely check out DearMyrtle.

Overall, the show was a great success. I even walked away with a newly developed curiosity to explore my own family’s past. It was definitely a good push to re-ask my own grandparents certain questions. Their photos are preserved, but the stories behind them should be documented alongside them. I may take Myrtle’s advice to video record my grandparents telling the stories behind their old photos- I think I’m up for that challenge.

As preserving your pictures is a great tool to revive your memory with past stories, we can help. If you have any questions about converting your old photos or home movies to digital format to relive these memories with loved ones, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-333-2808 or on Twitter at @ScanDigital or @PamelaSD.

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NAPO Conference in Orlando

Friday, May 29th, 2009

During the last week of April, Anderson Schoenrock and I attended the National Association of Professional Organizers Expo in Orlando, Florida.  It’s always a nice change of pace to get out of the office every once in a while and the convention proved to be a very rewarding trip.

After an uncomfortable flight back east (try squeezing a 6’4” frame into a middle seat for 5 hours) we headed to the convention to set up our booth.  Having a collapsible frame booth was great, the set up only took about 20 minutes!  That saved enough time for Anderson and me to get some work done back at the hotel and head to the ESPN Zone to catch some playoff basketball.

As an exhibitor we were able to speak with almost all of the professional organizers in attendance over the 2 full exhibition days.  It was a great opportunity to meet with new and current affiliates and hear about customer experiences first-hand from many of our affiliates whom have sent their clients’ materials to us.

We signed up a great number of new affiliates and answered thousands of questions (professional organizers are very thorough!) regarding our services.  Speaking to people about ScanDigital is something that I am very passionate about.  We feel that we are not only running a business but that we are providing a truly valuable service that allows families and friends to preserve and share their histories and memories forever.

We unfortunately did not win any exhibitor awards and only later did we find out that the winners all had to lobby for their prizes.  It’s a good thing that we decided to take up digital media conversion as opposed to politics!

My best news of the trip came when on the flight back home I was upgraded to first-class, making even the terrible in-flight movie somewhat enjoyable.  All in all it was yet another successful convention for ScanDigital, we look forward to returning next year.

 

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