My Experience at Blogher

I went alone to the Blogher Conference and had a good experience attending. It was well organized and they handed you a generous canvas bag of "swag" (you know, vendor promotional items) at the registration table.

The Blogher website has a lot of links of info and recaps from the conference.

There a number of Break-Out Sessions/forums you could choose from. The nice thing was that it was fine to come and go as you please during these sessions. I did notice a lot of the women on their laptops throughout the day, which makes sense of course. In the room with Sponsor tables, I learned about picnik (a free photo editing website) and Snapfish. Many of the other vendors seemed geared towards mommy bloggers.

Lunch was provided. I chose the box lunch with a veggie wrap and sat at an empty table. About four others eventually joined me and I met and exchanged cards with a few more nice women, some were local some out-of-state.

I did recognize a few Bloggers that I’ve read or heard of. I spotted Andrea Scher, Jen Lemen, Zandria, I think I saw Maya, Maggie Mason , and of course the closing keynote speakers, Heather Armstrong and Stephanie Klein.

Now I will share some personal thoughts:

My personality is quiet but friendly so I wasn’t very good at networking. (I’m proud of making up personal cards and sharing about a dozen!) I feel a little left out of the blogging communities because I haven’t reached out or made much of an effort. I do like to comment or email someone that I enjoy reading or resonate with, or even have a question for. I know people have made great connections and friends this way too.

Being in my forties now, I admit that I am selfish about how and who I spend my time with. I relate to Kerstin’s recent posting about not being sure where she and her blog fit in. At this time, I just like using my little online platform to challenge myself to find interesting things and ideas to share, to write poetry, and as a creative outlet. If I can connect with any nice people this way then I welcome that too.

(Cathy or Simone, if you see this, do you remember Fort Alcohol?)