The second day of the RootsTech conference started with another great keynote speech. This time we were treated to a barefoot Josh Coates, the CEO of Instructure and founder of Mozy. Actually, I couldn’t see his feet at all from where I was sitting, but I was following the #rootstech Twitter feed and read that he was barefoot. Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities was a delightful tech trek through the history of social media, data storage, and our cloud-computing future. Sprinkled with pithy quotes from the likes of Mark Twain, along with an “accidental” slide of a graph comparing zombies’ aggression vs speed, Coates’ presentation was almost as funny as the previous night’s comedy show. But there was some serious content too. Like did you know that cats are made up of nothing but water and cat food?

Today’s sessions, like yesterday’s, I had selected in advance, using a newly-created iPad and Android RootsTech app. I installed it on my Android phone and on my iPad. Prior to the conference, I’d also downloaded the full syllabi and placed them into DropBox so that I could access them from my iPad, mobile phone, and computer at home. What I did not account for, however, was a problem with one of the sessions that I decided to attend at the last minute. It was the hands-on Google session. As you can see from the photo above, a huge line of people were hoping to get in. I thought I was too late, but it was because the session required pre-registration. Darn! The people in line were hoping to get in.

I spent some time exploring the Expo Hall and then took my volunteer post at the APG table to help out at the booth along with a fellow APG member. A lot of people stopped by to take a piece of candy, ask about becoming a professional, or ask about hiring one.

By this time I was feeling pretty good. I could answer people’s questions. I knew my way around the Salt Palace. I knew how to get from one place to another. I was beginning to see familiar faces, and I enjoyed talking with the folks from UK-based brightsolid (I use their websites a lot).

The last session of the day was Amy Johnson Crow’s Understanding WordPress. I learned a few things that helped me with this blog! But my day was not over. There was still the Late Night at the Library event. Down the street from the Salt Palace is the Family History Library, which was offering special late hours from 6pm to midnight because of the conference. With pizza at 10pm! I managed to do some client research – in levels B1 and B2 (see directory photo) and checked a few items off my to-do list.

By 10:30 I was back at the hotel. It was hard to believe that tomorrow would be the last day of the conference. I was just getting comfortable and soon it would be time to fly home.