Today was jam packed with sessions, sessions and more sessions.  I was part of the panel for two sessions today and I had a BLAST!  The best part is, I have audio!  While I would love to share it as soon as possible, I just don’t have the capabilities to do it while in Charlotte, so we’ll just have to wait till the show is over, sorry.

The first session I was on the panel for was There’s a Lighting App for That/Mobile Lighting Tools. Just like it sounds, we talked about mobile apps! The panel was lead by Scott Parker from StageSeminars.com, joined by app developer Eric Cornwell from West Side Systems, legendary lighting designer, Richard Pilbrow, and me! We had a great discussion about why and how apps are developed.  How Mr. Pilbrow uses his iPad and various apps to aid him in designing and then me rounding out most of the other lighting apps and some other useful tips, tricks and ideas on how to manage not only your design process, but your life as well.

The second session that I was on the panel for was Marketing in the Digital World and Social Media for the Lighting Professional.  The panel included Andrea Bilkey, Jim Hutchison from JimOnLight and myself. The three of us discussed how important it is to be social both in the real world and online and offered some guidelines to help prepare yourself for that undertaking.  And yes, I was live tweeting the session a little bit.

The final session I got to for the day was the Lighting Commission Meeting.  The lighting commission is the group of people that organizes the lighting sessions for the conference.  It’s at this meeting where anyone, I mean ANYONE can put forth and idea for future sessions.  If you have a great idea for a session at USITT that deals with lighting, they want to talk to you! I have been apart of three sessions in the past two years and I have had a BLAST sharing my thoughts with everyone.  I encourage you to do the same.  Headed over to the Lighting Commission page and get in contact with someone and tell them about your great idea.

Finally, the day wrapped up with some dinner, a few choice beverages and the USITT 2011 tweetup at Strike Bowling.  I didn’t get a chance to take to many photos today as I was running around all over the convention center.  But in true iSquint fashion, I’ll have plenty of photos to share tomorrow!