I still can’t believe it’s over. [Rich speaking here.]

Jaica, Chrystie and I have been talking about, planning and promoting the event since March, an incredible amount of hours and sweat equity went into the FTW conference, and now it’s over.

We’d like to just take a moment and thank all the people who made it possible. (What, you thought we did this by ourselves?)

First off, the sponsors, who helped keep the event affordable for the attendees. MaineBusiness.com, the Business School at USM, and flyte new media.

Next up, we’d like to thank the exhibitors who kept people engaged in between the sessions and during registration: The Maine Marketing Association, Reliable Networks, Digital Research, Inc., and JobsInME.com, as well as booths from our sponsors.

We certainly want to thank all the speakers, who kept their cool despite NO A/C! Fred Abaroa, Jason C. Blais, Greg Daly, Justin Ellis, David Jacquet, Candace Karu, Mike Lewis, Franklin McMahon, Carl Natale, Amanda O’Brien, Jeff Parsons, Kyle Pouliot, Sarah Wallace, and Lynnelle Wilson.

I also want to thank the Department of Conferences at USM, and specifically our contact Sherry Phillips.

Let’s not forget Bard Coffee and Red Bull for keeping our attendees well-caffeinated throughout the day.

A special thanks to Lisa Valentine who gave us some priceless insight and advice for promoting the event.

I’d also like to thank all of our attendees for taking time out of their day to attend our first–but certainly not last–FTW conference. We were just overwhelmed by the interest in the topic, and felt terrible that we had to turn so many people away. (Those of you on the wait list will get an early head’s up on the next one.)

On a personal note, I’d like to thank the flyte crew who all pitched in to stuff badges, man the kiosks, handle registration, deal with the broken A/C, help out when the parking lot filled up, dealt with the evaluations, and did a million other things that I was kept blissfully unaware of during the day. Admittedly, they were “on the clock,” but we couldn’t have done it without you. Lindsay Babayan, Cybele Brooks, Dave Cousins, Ryan Goan (who we tricked into joining Twitter yesterday), Nicki Hicks, Gloria Maher, and Andy Woznica.

Thanks also to Angela Coulombe who was our official photobug for the day.

I’m almost afraid to hit “publish” because I know I’m forgetting somebody MAJOR, but that’s the beauty of a blog: you can just hit update.