Attend (some of) RootsTech from Home

The RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City starts on Thursday this week, and a large group of us from SCGS will be attending. We are honored to have been chosen as one of the handful of societies to have a booth on the exhibit floor. Stop by booth 627, across the aisle from the Internet Cafe, and say hi.  SCGS members, be sure to pick up your "SCGS Member" badge ribbon.

We will keep you updated through blog posts during the conference, which is expected to draw a crowd of over 3,000. Some will be genealogists and family historians; many will be high-tech wizards who develop the software programs, equipment and technology that we use today and will use years from now.

So you can't travel to Salt Lake City? Never fear.  Fourteen of the sessions will be lived-streamed so you can watch from home.  Here is the schedule as released by the RootsTech. I have highlighted the sessions that are being given by speakers who will be with us at the 2012 Jamboree:

SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, a leading family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2-4, 2012, announced today that fourteen of its popular sessions will be broadcasted live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The second-year conference has attracted over 3,000 registered attendees.

The free online sessions include the keynote speakers and a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the fourteen broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST):

Thursday, February 2

8:30-10:00 am, Inventing the Future, as a Community (Keynote Address) by Jay L. Verkler

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Do I Trust the Cloud? by D. Joshua Taylor  

1:45-2:45 pm, Effective Database Search Tactics by Kory Meyerink     

3:00-4:00 pm, Twitter – It’s Not Just “What I Had for Breakfast” Anymore by Thomas MacEntee  

4:15-5:15 pm, Eleven Layers of Online Searches by Barbara Renick     

Friday, February 3

8:30-9:30 am, Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities (Keynote Address) by Josh Coates

9:45-10:45 am, Publish Your Genealogy Online by Laura G. Prescott     

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Optimize Your Site for Search Engines by Robert Gardner    

1:45-2:45 pm, Genealogists “Go Mobile” by Sandra Crowly  

3:00-4:00 pm, Google’s Toolbar and Genealogy by Dave Barney      

Saturday, February 4

8:30-9:30 am, Making the Most of Technology to Further the Family History Industry (Keynote Address) by Tim Sullivan and Ancestry.com Panel

9:45-10:45 am Genealogy Podcasts and Blogs 101 by Lisa Louise Cooke    

11:00 am-12:00 pm, Future of FamilySearch Family Tree by Ron Tanner

1:45-2:45 pm, Privacy in a Collaborative Environment by Noah Tutak