A Few Late Words About BlogWorld Expo

Blogging conferences used to be a big thing for me. Over the years, as I've made connections with people I only see at conferences, I have less time (or is it less desire?) to blog about the conferences themselves. Lots of times I don't even mention where I've been and I've left that section of my sidebar rather untended. One of the events I attended in September was BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas--and I was very glad I did!

Ok...I'll 'fess up: I was there, in part, to moderate two panels--you can check the schedule here to find the panels on The State of Citizen Journalism (with Jan Schaffer and Mike Tippett) and Who Needs Hyperlocal?--and both went very well....

There was a super-enthusiastic group in the Who Needs Hyperlocal? panel, asking all sorts of questions on whether or not to start a hyperlocal news venture, how one can make money from such a venture, and a number of comments about how money doesn't need to be the main goal of a hyperlocal site. In fact, if the hyperlocal region has a very small population, it might be difficult to earn money from standard click-through advertising rates. Debbie Galant, Mark Potts and Ruby Sinreich had a great deal to share with this group about their extensive hyperlocal experiences....

And yes, I did get to meet up with lots of folks I know from my version of what the "conference circuit" happens to be (my version takes in marketing and tech cons, not just journalism.) So I got to see the likes of Chris Brogan, and Toby Bloomberg, and Liz Strauss, and got to meet Connie Bensen and a few other folks from the "social media" scene--which tends to overlap with marketing, which overlaps with "community development."

And as I hung around BWE on Sunday, taking in some of the panels (I missed a lot on Saturday due to "moderator's anxiety" which shouldn't haunt me any longer) I got to thinking about all these overlapping fields of blogging--from journalism to marketing to public relations--what the various practitioners think about what they're doing, what outside observers think about what the pundits and practitioners have to say, and how, for all this communication, there's too little communication between disciplines and across conferences.

It's as if conferences become their own little bell-jars, their own closed communities where messages bounce around and many times are never heard beyond the confines of the conference...

I've been thinking about this a lot, as there were some philosophies about blogging floating around in BlogWorld that are not necessarily heard out in many of the groups of bloggers I know. I always think of an email conversation that was had about "under-represented" blogging groups, and how one group of people with one political leaning might find gay and transgendered bloggers an "under-represented" group, others with a different political leaning may find military or god bloggers to be "under-represented" groups. And both would be right. There are many small groups that are under-represented at conferences, which still seem to be geared to particular elites (and I've been an "elite" at times--or just play one at conferences ;-) ) and BlogWord tries to give some of these groups a place to gather, meet, and share info on how to be more effective.

Overall, BlogWorld tries to do a lot, and I believe it does its best to bring a great deal of information to the folks who are attending. Yes, much of the conference focuses around "how to make money" from blogging, or how to blog for maximum audience, or how to get more readers to business blogs, or how to explain one kind of blogging ROI metric to potential clients who don't believe blogging even *has* an ROI, but IMO, this is information that a lot of people are looking for. Blogging's potential isn't just as a vehicle to empower the aspiring "citizen journalist" who will struggle for pennies and on principle--blogging's potential extends into so many media-related disciplines it's staggering.

And, when it comes down to it, making money really isn't a bad thing....

I also got to meet conference organizer Rick Calvert, who, over the time leading up to BWE, I'd shared some great telephone conversations. It was a little odd, as my appearance had changed from my pic (hence my change of pic when I got back from BWE) but it was great to make that f2f connection finally.

Perhaps my only disappointment was not being able to sit in on David Perlmutter's Citizen Journalism Bootcamp sessions on Friday. I really didn't want to get the certification--just wanted to hear some of the info and meet Prof. Perlmutter. Oh well, maybe next year....

Check out more BWE info: BlogWorld headlines on NowPublic, Miss604's liveblogging of the State of Cit J panel and a plethora of blog posts and tweets listed on Technorati...