Memories of BlogHer Food 2009

Before I go any further, I need to confess something. I was really bad last weekend.

I schlepped my camera all the way across the continent to the BlogHer Food Conference. Then I didn’t take a single picture. Nada.

There’s just something about actually having time for stimulating conversation with fascinating people that makes me forget I have a camera with me for a purpose, not just a weight to lug around. I kicked myself all the way home. If a blogging goddess exists, she would probably revoke my blogger credentials.

Fortunately at least one person has photographic evidence that I actually attended and had a grand time. Ree made me giggle when she put the camera up to my face then I couldn’t stop! Plus it was 2:00 A.M. East Coast time, I was tired and had no idea which way was up. Good thing I only sipped 1.5 glasses of wine at the Mushroom Channel party earlier.

My favorite memories from the weekend: Read more

BlogHer DC ‘08 Follow Up

Came home Monday night and after giving Michael the recap I fell asleep on the sofa, utterly spent. I had talked until I couldn’t talk any more because there were so many great bloggers to meet and many friends to catch up with. I had a great time working with Liz Henry, Veronica Noone, and Kristen King on the Blogging Basics panel and hope that the information discussed was useful for everyone who attended. You can find live notes from the panel and Liz’s presentation in the BlogHer DC Liveblogs post and you can also download a copy of my presentation. [Update: Kristen posted notes about promoting a blog, and Veronica posted a fun video follow up.]

The closing keynote was a panel with Carol Jenkins, Lesley Stahl, Liz Mair, and Mary Ann Akers discussing social media and the political process. Make sure you check out the liveblog notes for this keynote, as the discussion was fascinating.

The sessions are always good, but for me the highlight is meeting and talking with other bloggers. This time I had a chance to meet Fabulous Miss S, Beth Bilus, Lindsay Maines, Judy, De, Julia, Sarah Dopp in the Geek Lab, Rachel and her nice husband (yes, a few men attended), Fishy Girl, Foodie Tots, Sue, Gloria, Dr. Val, and Matt and Katin. (Aside: I didn’t get cards from all the women in my small group at the Blogging Basics panel, so please drop me a line so I can find you.) And of course it was great to catch up with friends from DC Metro Moms Blog: Linda, Jodifur, Nicole, Jessica, Mama Bird, Devra, Joanne.

I found the small conference to be very worthwhile. While I enjoyed the big conference in San Francisco in July, the DC conference had a less-is-more aura. The themes of blogging basics and community-building seemed to work well, particularly in the national capitol region where advocacy is a part of life. I have hope that BlogHer can continue to offer these smaller conferences in various parts of the country, giving local and traveling bloggers a chance to connect and discuss the topics that are important to us. Thanks to the BlogHer team for coming to DC!

Speaking at BlogHer DC ‘08

Today I’m at BlogHer DC speaking with Liz Henry, Veronica Noone, and Kristen King at the 1 PM panel on Blogging Basics: 6 Steps to Personalize, Polish, and Promote Your Blog. Here’s the agenda description:

Join BlogHer’s Liz Henry and a team of subject-matter experts for a quick and effective blog makeover. Let’s look at your blog, whether you’ve got one post up or 100, and give it some love. Liz will explain 6 simple steps you can take to give your blog a tune-up, and then we’ll break into small groups to try out some of what you’ve learned. These 6 steps can help clarify to your readers who you are and what you write. Whether you use WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, or any other platform – you and your platform are welcome.

Personalize: Veronica “Roni” Noone will make sure your readers know how to identify and reach you…and that you feature your community, so they can also see themselves. In addition she’ll work with you to learn how to add images, or even audio and video, to show who you are.

Polish: Andrea Meyers (well known for Andrea’s Recipes) will cover the basic geeky ingredients that add up to a truly functional, findable, fabulous blog. Learn about appropriate, search-friendly hyperlinking, tagging…why and how, and even about headlines and why they matter.

Promote: Kristen King will help you learn how (and why) to put your post on BlogHer, Twitter, Kirtsy, Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Stumbleupon, other social sites.

You can download my presentation here.

Andrea Meyers’ presentation at BlogHer DC ‘08 (219 kb)

BlogHer ‘08, Thanks and Thoughts

My mind is finally processing everything from the BlogHer conference in San Francisco. I had a great time meeting and hanging out with some fun food bloggers: Claire, Lydia, Kalyn, Kathy, Sean, Shuna, Susan, Sara, Genie, Gudrun, Elise (thanks for the mug!), Amy, Jennifer. Then there was the all the fun catching up with my friends from DC Metro Moms Blog: Tech Savvy Mama, Jessica, Stimey, WhyMommy, Mama Bird, Sandie, Vickie, KC, Lawyer Mama, Pundit Mom, Kristin, Kimberly. Meeting the rest of the SV Moms at the party on Thursday was wonderful, and it was great to finally put a face to all the names I read on the blogs: Jill, Beth, Tekla, Linsey, Alix, Canape (I understand where you are coming from), Myrna, and many others.

There were about 1000 bloggers at the conference and many opportunities to meet people, and I have to say this shy woman started feeling a little overwhelmed, but I tried to step out of my normal wall-flower persona and enjoy all the hubbub, though for some strange reason I suddenly found myself very nervous when it came time to introduce my blog at the food bloggers meetup! So I must say a big thanks to all of you who came to me and introduced yourselves because you helped me come out of my shell. (Of course there’s a potential downside to that because I think I talked some people’s ears off once I got to know them, so if I did talk your ear off, thank you for being so gracious about it.)

The conference presented many learning opportunities, and I felt pulled in multiple directions. My favorite presentations were Elise’s session on building traffic (she is so honest and down-to-earth), Me Ra Koh’s session on photography (very inspiring), and the business of blogging session.  Often there were concurrent presentations I was interested in, but I had to choose. The Business of Blogging session was very informative, but I had to exit in the middle of Tax Girl’s awesome presentation to go to the Birds of a Feather Meetup so I could join my fellow food bloggers. I appreciated Kalyn’s idea of introducing ourselves with just 10 words about our blogs (think really really short elevator speech), though some of the corporate reps in the room tried to do an end-run around that rule. Kalyn showed off her classroom management skills and kept everyone on track! My only complaint with the meetups is the lack of time and space. We had a lot of food bloggers or people interested in food blogging and such a short amount of time for even a 10-word introduction. We did set aside some tables for Saturday lunch so we could all sit together and have some more talking time, and the food bloggers all tried to get together for lunch on Sunday, but I had to miss that one to catch my flight home.

One interesting thing that came out of our discussions during and after BlogHer ‘08 is the need for a food bloggers conference. This isn’t new; it has been discussed off and on for the last few years, and to those who had attended before as well as all of us newbies, the need for sessions specific to food bloggers was readily apparent. A bunch of us started Twittering and emailing and then putting our ideas together in the hope that next summer we can have a conference dedicated to food blogging. We think it’s something to get excited about! Maybe next year?