Monday to Wednesday, I had three glorious days, in Manchester on CASE Europe Annual Conference. The conference lasted until Thursday, but I needed to get back to the office and work a bit before the weekend, because I currently have a lot going on (who doesn’t? ;)).

Before the Main conference started after lunch at Tuesday, the Pre-Conference took place and CASE recommended newcomers and international participants to attend. We were barely a hundred people who took the chance to meet up and get to know each other before it got about 900 people on site.

The Pre-Conference was for me a real stroke of luck. Already when we were welcomed by Kate Hunter (@kahunter), Executive Director at CASE Europe, she told us about the thing that I was struck by several times; transparency. The willingness to share, learn and support. It was at the Pre-Conference, I met several I am quite sure that I will keep in touch with.

Monday afternoon offered workshops and I joined New and social media. We discussed what we’re working with (and what we’re not yet!), how we think, what kind of internal speed bump we need to pass and so on. The workshop is one of the things that was most rewarding for me throughout the conference.

The first session Tuesday morning was held by Tricia King (@TriciaKing1), Director of External Relations at Birkbeck, University of London. With humor and fervor, she told how to succeed in getting your message across and get those you need to work with to want to do the same. And a lesson that was mentioned over and over again was: You are never alone! All universities all over the world struggles with the exact same challenges. And that really is so true!

Two other great speakers, at the Main conference, was Tracy Playle (@picklejar) and Andrew Blair (@AndyBlairUK). Both held sessions on social media and brand. How to get the organization to become more open to the social media, why should we as a university be out there and how should we do if it goes wrong? At one of Tracys’s session where Martin Hall (VCSalford), Ferdinand von Prodzynski (vonprond) and Tricia King and told us about how they, as leaders, use social media. Very interesting!

Everything doesn’t need to be the hottest news (but of course not years old either!), but getting new points of views, hear others’ questions and answers to them can make me think outside the box and the new ideas popping up. I love it!

A small idea that I hope CASE can use next year is to set a marker on the level of the sessions. For example, newcomer in the industry/in between/advanced. This would help to choose the most matching sessions in the more than great, fantastic selection.

But, no matter what session that’s offered, the best with conferences like this is the opportunity to connect with and get to know other people in the same industry. That is for me the best way to get new ideas. And as Kate Hunter also said in the beginning, CASE stands for Copy And Steal Everything :)

Thanks CASE Europe for a fantastic conference!