I’ve surprised myself by blogging from two conferences already this year. “Surprised” because I don’t consider myself a conference blogger, but writing about my experiences has really helped me process the large amount of information I’ve been given in such a short time.

This Thursday and Friday, I’ll be at the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit. For those who are unfamiliar, the Summit pulls great church, business, and organization leaders together to share best practices, new techniques, and insightful knowledge over two days.

I’ve attended the last four years and I’ve seen Bono, Jack Welch, Catherine Rohr, Tony Blair, Gary Haugen, Tony Dungy, Blake Mycoskie, Cory Booker, Seth Godin, and many more. Each year I walk away wondering how I will ever remember the wisdom and learnings I was presented, and there’s a part of me that wishes I could walk away with more.

This year, I will be one of 8,000 watching the Summit live in South Barrington. Another 62,000 attendees will be watching the satellite feed all across North America. The neat part is that I will be watching the whole event in a room that about 50 people have access to—the Summit’s social media room. I get to be in there for my job (I’ll be tweeting from @WillowCreekCC), and each year I’ve been in there, the room has gotten just a little bit bigger. If there’s one downside to being in that room, it’s that I can’t always tell the mood of the auditorium from what I’m seeing on a screen. Some speakers command a presence when they speak, and that doesn’t always translate over a monitor.

So expect to see a couple blogs before the end of this week. Plus I’ll be tweeting parts of the event from my person Twitter account (@iphilpot) as well as from my Google + and Pinterest accounts. (That’s right. No Facebook love from me.)