Dan Savage at NAIS Annual Conference

New Live Blog added to my NAIS Annual Conference schedule.  Dan Savage

I'm really excited about this one! 1:30 Friday (pacific time) Dan Savage is now a household name thanks to his It Gets Better video project on YouTube. The September 2010 project won instant acclaim asking people to upload short, positive videos about their experience with the LGBT community. Millions have viewed the popular videos, including President Barack Obama and entertainer Janet Jackson. Advertising Age called It Gets Better one of the top social media campaigns of 2010. Savage’s book, It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying and Creating a Life Worth Living, released in March 2011.

Innovation, Live-blogs, and a Tweet or Two. . .

I'm so excited to have the opportunity to attend the NAIS Annual conference in Seattle this year. I'll be serving as a conference blogger for the first time, with a focus on live blogging the general conference sessions. I began live-blogging the conference in 2009, but this is the first time it'll be "official!"

From the conference website:

Join more than 3,500 independent school leaders and colleagues at the 2012 NAIS Annual Conference in Seattle. Together we'll tap into the innovative spirit of the Pacific Northwest to dream up bold new ideas to lead our school communities into the future. Long a hotbed of creativity, Seattle will inspire you to invent new programs and ideas and revitalize current ones to bring back to your schools. Together we'll imagine new ways to cultivate leadership within our schools -- for administrators, faculty, and our students, who are the global leaders of tomorrow. Bill Gates, our opening general session speaker and independent school alum, will inspire and challenge you as he models for us how cutting-edge innovation and philanthropy go hand in hand.

I'll be reporting live from the conference as each of the general conference speakers inspires the audience. I'll take notes on the speeches, include my own thoughts, observations of the audience and provide a curated Twitter feed as well. Clearly, I'll be drinking lots of Seattle coffee to keep me alert and multi-tasking!

The speakers I'll be live-blogging are listed below in the order in which they will speak. Click on the speakers name to go to the specific post for the live blog for that speaker. I have information about the speakers available now, along with the chance to have yourself emailed a reminder closer to the blog time.

Bill Gates

Independent Matters with a trio of guests speakers who will expound on the conference theme: Stephen Carter, Cheryl Crazy Bull, and Sarah Kay

John Hunter

Amy Chua

JUST ADDED Dan Savage