November 9, 2007

A Blog Convention Without , You Know .... Blogging

A funny thing happened to me at the BlogWorld Expo. I stopped blogging. And while it seems a strange way to celebrate the success of the first industry convention for the blogosphere, those many who attended will understand.

The success is undeniable. Dozens of exhibitors set up shop at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and not just with card tables and folding chairs. The booths showed obvious capital investment, just as professional as any other trade shows I've attended in past careers. I helped man the BlogTalkRadio booth, and we had very few quiet moments in two days of blogger celebration. I spent most of both days on my feet, talking with bloggers and entrepreneurs about BTR and its potential for their ventures, and at least as much time simply swapping stories with friends old and new.

In fact, the booth commanded so much attention that I wound up attending only the panel on which I spoke. The booth grew so busy that I simply could not do the task which brought me to BlogWorld Expo in the first place: blogging. Had I not arisen early enough to spend a couple of hours before breakfast with the laptop, I would have posted very little yesterday or today.

And that, believe it or not, shows just how successful this trade show was. Most of the attendees probably had the same experience to some degree, and I have no doubt that the exhibitors did. The conference generated so much traffic that we had no slack time to catch up on e-mail or news.

Of course, success comes in other guises, too. I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the panel on raising the level of discourse, and talking with some of the attendees afterward. Before today, I had never met Glenn Reynolds, Rick Moran, or Ed Driscoll (and Glenn has an interesting picture of me in the middle of my Heading Right Radio show with Duane Patterson on his site now). Frank and Shane from Political Vindication had just been names on the webchat list before yesterday, and now we're good friends, even if Frank roots for the Rams. I finally made Chuck Ziegenfuss' formal acquaintance after failing to recognize him in the Reno airport last month. I could go on and on in the same vein for another five paragraphs, but you get the point.

When one meets so many quality individuals and makes these kinds of friends, how can it be anything other than a success?

Next year, BlogWorld Expo will take place in September, about six weeks before the elections. You will want to start planning now to make that trip. And when you do, make plans to take a couple of days off -- because it will leave you exhausted at the end.

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