@benberkowitz @ElmCityParent @YLSAA @stellel @idiot_girl @TheSunQueen @careerfolk @followcb @voytec @kcarpentier77

I often judge the success of a conference based on the number of interesting new people that I connect with at the conference. #swct has been a great series of events and I want to highlight a few of the people that I’ve followed as a result.

I’m skipping over the more obvious people; people that I knew before #swct and that you’ve probably already heard a lot about, for example @andreayap, @jcnork, @giuliag, @retailgoddess and others are friends that I had met before the planning of Social Web Week, and hopefully everyone knows them already.

So, starting off is @benberkowitz of SeeClickFix. I had heard a lot about him from various sources, so in a certain sense, it doesn’t feel like I just met him. However, I wasn’t following him before #swct and if we had met face to face, it was at best, in passing at some conference or another.

I did meet @ElmCityParent during some of the planning sessions, but we never really spoke that much. Yet I’m interested to stay in touch with what she is up to via twitter. I’ve probably spent even less time talking face to face with @YLSAA, but she seems like another important person to stay in touch with on Twitter.

@stellel and @idiot_girl are people that I was pleased to meet and hope to hear a lot more from. They bring an important design perspective to the social web. @idiot_girl and I also share a similar strong dislike of the gurus or so called experts that we run into at too many conferences.

@TheSunQueen took me completely by surprise. Some of the first messages I saw from her triggered my faux-guru radar. She came in towards the end talking about wanting to present something as part of #swct. Presentations almost immediately trigger my faux-guru radar. On top of this, she was promoting an ebook about starting a business. That was a second signal triggering my faux-guru radar. I was very pleased to find that these were false warnings. @TheSunQueen is a fascinating person in many different ways and I look forward to keeping up with her.

Likewise @careerfolk triggered some faux-guru readings. I have an inherent distrust of people promoting activities on LinkedIn as well as any activity that costs money. @careerfolk wanted to promote an event listed on LinkedIn that cost something like $25. We’ve sent some time communicating back and forth online. One of the events that she organized included a good friend, so I’m willing to give her a pass on LinkedIn for the time being and I look forward to further communications.

@followcb initially struck me as little bit of a celebrity. I like celebrities about as much as I like gurus. However, @followcb does not really have the annoying trappings of online celebrities and is a fun person to talk with and follow.

@voytec is a particularly interesting person that I got to know through Social Web Week; a nautical social geek. It is a great combination, and he’s a great photographer as well. Well worth the follow.

Finally, there is @kcarpentier77. We’ve met a few times through various social media activities and I find her very interesting as well.

So, we are almost through with Social Web Week. However, those of us who have connected through it are bound to stay in touch and do many more interesting things with social media in Connecticut. I hope some of my Connecticut readers made it to some of the social web week activities, are considering coming to PodcampCT and will join in plans for other social media activities here.

Have you followed anyone new and interesting through Social Web Week?