And I water it with Conferences so it can grow up big and strong! I've not only attended, but managed, several internet industry conferences in the past 10 years, and before there were conferences geared specifically toward bloggers I was running conferences & trade shows, in a wide variety of industries including Finance and Internet, I would attend PC World and Mac World, I ran my own IRL group for the NYC chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals, at it's early stages the discoveries happening in wireless were sometimes out pacing the developments on many desktops. Despite having spent half a lifetime producing conferences myself, staffing busy exhibitor booths or enlisting the absolute cream of the crop in the industry as keynote speakers, I have somehow managed to NOT tire of conferences. I somehow feed off their frenetic and frantic pace.
From the moment we arrive at the airport and are in a sea of fellow conference attendees trying to get through to the gate so we can all just dump our bags and sit for a moment. Then begin light banter back and forth, about sessions and panels we absolutely can't miss, and what time we plan to meet for break and what exhibitor booth we want to check out during the break. It's a flurry of activities from begining to end. Since I started blogging, I've made it my vow to attend at least ONE blogging conference per year. Preferably a different one each time until I've tried them all. Last Year, I attended the Most well known blogging conference in the space, BlogHer. I greatly enjoyed it. So this year when the opportunity presented itself for me to attend the BlogWorld East New Media Conference and Expo, I jumped right on that as a Media Partner and hosted a Twitter Party to draw east coast bloggers to the event.
When it ended, I thought I was done for the summer in terms of conferences and would shift gears to Fashion Week.
I nearly forgot that there is another great conference coming SOON! It's Blogalicious Weekend 2011. A conference that much like BlogWorld earlier this summer, I haven't yet tried out before! And not just any conference, but one geared especially towards bloggers of color, who want to push their blog and their brand as far as it can go. They are offering practical advice from the standpoint of bloggers who have been there and achieved 'THAT", yes I mean YOU and YOUR specific THAT. Whether your 'that' is learning more engaging writing to keep traffic flowing and steadily growing, or if your THAT is monetization then you can sit in on a panel that will teach you to turn your blog into a revenue stream!
I for one seek out ways to both inspire others and be inspired. Conferences always provide the opportunity to not only learn from the pros, but meet them, ask them questions that pertain to my particular situation and what their advice and suggestions would be. There are times when you learn more listening to the lunchtime break conversation of your fellow bloggers than what you learned in a session you sat it in and that's OK, that's what makes each experience so unique and so valuable. So make friends with fellow bloggers, and later in the day have a poolside mixer at the hotel where you all can swap out the notes you took from each session and let the other person copy them who missed that session, and you copy notes from a session you missed, and share a bottle of wine and make it fun! or if it's a warm day, how about ice cream instead?
Are any of my Butterflies heading to Blogalicious Weekend this year? if you are, and you are driving up from NYC, please let me know! Would love to arrive with a Bloggie Buddy!
˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙
FTC Disclosure: This is NOT a sponsored Post. However it does put me in the running to win a full conference pass to Blogalicious Weekend courtesy of Latina Bloggers Connect. Should I be one of the four lucky winners selected. Writing about the conferences does NOT increase my odds. The winner will be selected at random.
