In 2009, WhippleHill’s annual User Conference returned to the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The roster of guest speakers and presentations at UC09 included:

-    Keynote speaker Clay Shirky, a professor of new media and expert on emerging technologies whose latest book, “Here Comes Everybody,” examines the trends of social media.

-    Will Richardson, a former high school teacher and outspoken advocate for integrating technology into learning. Richardson is the voice behind the educational blog Weblogg-ed. Richardson presented a session on network literacy.

-    Mike Richwalsky, assistant director of public affairs at Allegheny College; Andrew Shaindlin, author of the blog Alumni Futures, and executive director of the Caltech Alumni Association; and Jay Goulart of Ridley College, who joined Richardson in a Social Media Panel moderated by WhippleHill President Travis Warren.

-    Kayvon Beykpour, who, at 20 years old, is the founder and CEO of Terriblyclever, the company that worked with WhippleHill to develop MobilEdu. Beykpour joined Warren in a presentation called “Mobile Roadmap” that emphasized WhippleHill’s commitment to creating mobile solutions to stay ahead of user trends.

-    “Podium Roadmap,” an all-conference session by Warren and Podium Product Manager Melissa Lavallee reviewed releases made since the previous year’s User Conference and highlighted enhancements on the horizon for Push Page.

New clients and new hires participated in a “boot camp”-style training on the conference’s opening day. Additional training sessions led by WhippleHill staff were offered throughout the length of the conference, as well as general sessions conducted by Ecosystem partners, staff, industry insiders and representatives from client schools.