Cheers to Blog World Expo Los Angeles 2011

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you wanna go..
Where everybody knows your name
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
the troubles are all the same.
you wanna be where everybody knows your name..."

Somewhere around 1982, Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo wrote these lyrics for the new sitcom "Cheers!" And for some strange reason when I think of Blog World Expo Los Angeles 2011(#BWELA) these lyrics just seem to fit. And yes I do know that many #BWELA attendees had not been born in 1982...but I am pretty sure they all know the lyrics and have felt the sentiment. Heck, I have even been to Boston's Bull & Finch Pub which served as the exterior for "Cheers!" To me the lyrics fit because while many people in the on-line world may know your name...there is a pretty good chance they can't pick you out in a crowd of 4000+, but it is a lot of fun trying and they really are glad you came. 

This was my third time attending Blog World Expo having participated in BWE09 and BWE10. Many bloggers have already posted their reviews and I am going to link to a number of those below, but I just wanted to take a few minutes to give you my overview.

Blog World Team

Judy with Rick Calvert- #BWELA

I must start by talking about the Blog World Team. If you have ever planned an event - tea party, wedding, golf tournament, business meeting, Thanksgiving dinner...then you know just a tiny bit of what goes into pulling off an event of this magnitude. I am pretty sure by next week Deb, Lara, Allison, Julie, Nikki, Dave and Rick will be laying the foundation for Blog World 2012. Really? I am sure the infrastructure is already in the works for 2012. So to the Blog World Team I say thank you for a job well done, seamlessly presented and for making all of us feel welcome.



 Exhibitors

We all like to go to conference exhibit halls. It really doesn't matter the nature of the conference, the exhibit hall is like trick or treating...you walk around meeting new people, getting a few gifts and if you are lucky you can learn about new software or hardware and take home something tangible to share with your co-workers or clients.  This year I met up again with Brett Wiltshire of BLOGGER. It was fun to reconnect with Brett and learn more about BLOGGER. I also stopped and talked to Tin Dizdarevic of ZEMANTA. I love Zemanta and have used it here on our blog and deployed it on client blogs for the last couple of years. It is just a great tool. My new find this year is POND5.  It will be my mission to share information about POND5 with my teammates and clients.  I don't know about you, but finding just the right photo/video/illustration for a website can be exhausting and I intend to really check out POND5.

Keynotes

I attended four Keynotes this year.

Jim Farley

• Shani Higgins presenting Technorati's State of the Blogosphere was enlightening. Nice to know that 61% of bloggers are hobbyists! While Shani gave us a lot of statistics to chew on, it was Mikal Belicove of Entrepreneur Magazine that did as Jason Falls suggested in his session "asked better questions" of Shani. It was the exchange between Mikal and Shani that made the keynote powerful.
• Brian Solis made us all feel welcome by offering us a free copy of his latest book "The End of Business as Usual" and Brian certainly did a great job of interviewing Jim Farley - Group Vice President, Global Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford Motor Company. Jim has a great story including the fact that his grandfather was the 389th employee hired by Ford Motor Company.  Jim's message: "Let people speak...listen...speak like them!" Enough said. I will make it a point to visit Ford Social and I will read Brian's book. 
• Mitch Joel handily moderated the keynote session Building a New Media Empire with Lisa Stone, Deanna Brown and Michael Stelzner. A couple of great quotes from this session: "If you see a hole - you can build a business", "the most successful people write about what they love", and "provide service and band together!" 
• Jordan Cooper is funny and I am glad I got to enjoy his comedy as he introduced the closing keynote. 

Sessions

When you purchase a two-day ticket, as opposed to the full conference - you risk missing meaningful and powerful sessions. Next year I will not make this mistake.  That is not to say that I did not enjoy the sessions I attended, but a number of people that I wanted to hear and meet spoke on Thursday and I arrived Friday morning.  In all I attended five sessions (there were hundreds!). Hmmm...

Jason Falls talking about B.S.

• "The Use of Digital Application and Tools to Change Behaviors to Improve Health" was interesting, but probably would have been more so if I were in the medical field.  But still good to know that the health field is trying to make the most of social media. 
• Jonathan Fields interviewed Chris Brogan and Leah Segedie in a "Lifestyle Makeover Roundtable". This was a very intimate (small group of people) and personal discussion about going through a lifestyle makeover.  There was great audience participation. 
• Jason Falls' session "This Is All Such B.S.: How to tell and what to do when you're being had in blogging, social media and beyond..."  The title is enough to make you want to hear what Jason has to say.  Jason had a lot to say but the big take-away was: "Ask better questions and do your own work!"
• I happened upon "How Dad Blogging Can Bust the Fatherhood Stereotypes" featuring Bruce Sallan, Jim Lin, Ron Mattocks and Kevin Metzger. And yes, I know, I am not a father...but I had a great father and I wanted to listen to what these Dad bloggers had to say. Sadly this session did not have a lot of participants.  It would have been better in a smaller room, but the content was over the top powerful.  Each gentleman offered such wonderful insights and they were well prepared...I became so involved with listening that I forgot to take copious notes.  But at the end Ron Mattocks gave me a gift of his book Sugar Milk and he signed my copy. I have started reading it...when a book can make you laugh out loud, then you know it is going to be great.

Live #blogchat

Mack Collier leading #blogchat at #BWELA

Live #blogchat was my fifth session. I have been participating in the on-line Twitter #blogchat for over a year. Every Sunday at 8:00PM Central time people get together on Twitter to chat about blogging. So to be part of Blog World's live #blogchat with Mack Collier was much anticipated and Mack did not disappoint his live audience. The topper was Mack's invitation for all of the live audience members to introduce themselves with their Twitter profile names. So much fun to meet @Sherree_W, @wordsdonewrite, @BruceSallan,  and @kikolani and to sit next to @allison_boyer in this live #blogchat.   Great event!


 Meeting People

My favorite part of Blog World Expo is meeting people who I have come to know through their blogs/websites or twitter.  For example, I have written about 501 Mission Place and finally I was able to meet Rob Hatch who is on the 501 Mission Place team. Also I was able to meet Chris Brogan, Jacqueline Carly, Mack Collier, Julien Smith, Justin Levy and get re-acquainted with Darren Rowse.

So here's to Blog World Expo and stopping by the Sheraton Hotel's bar where many knew my name, but few knew my face!

Allison Boyer, Judy Helfand and Julie Bonner

Related articles

• BWELA 2011: 7 Key Takeaways from BlogWorld Expo 2011 (businesswire.com)
• #blogchat LIVE at BlogWorldExpo: The Greatest Tweets & Quotes (jtdabbagian.com)
• BlogWorld Expo LA 2011 - A Look Back (thetechscoop.net)
• Blog World Gold Star Awards #bwela
• A Personal Observation Of What Was Blog World LA 2011 [#BWELA]

What's all this about comments?

San Diego Zoo sign

The past few days it appears a few bloggers are writing about blog comments. I think I must have missed a meeting. Was there an on-line discussion that triggered these posts? It seems to me there is a strange undercurrent about this topic. Let me give you a few examples, maybe you have read others. 

When Opinions Turn Ugly: Passive-Aggressive Blogging

From Silent to Troll in 60 Seconds

Look in the Mirror

The Other Side of Comments and Community

How Do You Sleep At Night?

Beware the Bog of Eternal Stench

This is Déjà vu.  In fact, now I remember it was last fall when I wrote a comment on one of Chris Brogan's posts.  It went like this:

Chris,
Sometimes I must really be asleep at the switch. Where does all this drama unfold? I get so busy with my clients and trying to stay up to date on strategy that I have totally missed this soap opera. I will say this: yesterday I read Julien's post about "How to Make Popular/Influential Friends" and he closed with this sentence: "This post inspired by a bunch of talk going on recently that I don’t want to give more attention to." So...I said to myself...something is going on and I am really out of the loop, but I wondered why Julien was dignifying the 'bunch of talk' by even writing the post. (Curiously no one has commented on Julien's post. [to date only one comment - 04/06/2011])
In the scheme of things...we have two wars, North Korea shooting at South Korea, people losing their homes, cholera epidemic in Haiti, people starving in our own towns...be the bigger person, as I know you are, do good work like you tell us to do.
Thank you for all you do.
Judy

Come to think about it, yesterday Chris Brogan tweeted: 

"If people spent 1/2 as much time working on good things instead of spreading rumors..."

When I read Chris' tweet it gave me a funny feeling and then in the last 24 hours came the blogs referenced above. Here is what I know.  It is hard to know what all is going on in social media. Sometimes there is an undercurrent that just lingers. It is unsettling. You aren't quite sure what started the discussion and many involved don't want to share the gory details. My guess is this will always go on, after all we're humans. We don't always communicate well when we are face to face, so for sure our words can and will be misconstrued in cyberspace. 

Last evening I was reading a fairly new blog and came across this post: An Editorial Comment. Go ahead click over and read it. Pretty interesting, don't you think? 

I know it seems a bit crazy to ask for your comments. But I really would like to know what you think. So please, comment away!

My Day With Three Remarkable Non-Profit Organizations

Some days really are remarkable. Last week I wrote a Webconsuls' post about a new on-line community for non-profit organizations - 501 Mission Place. In my post I commented:

"Let's face it; we are all touched by not-for-profit 501c organizations. Whether you serve on a board, work behind the scenes as a volunteer, or benefit from their continued and varied efforts - eventually not-for-profit 501c organizations impact our lives."

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of coming face to face with three not-for-profit organizations and I am here to tell you...it was a remarkable day.

Meet Amherst College. Amherst is my husband's Alma Mater, Class of 1968. Saturday, November 13th, was Homecoming and they played their long time rival Williams College. This was the 125th time these two colleges came face to face on the football field. It is a long tradition and on Saturday we were invited to watch the game with alumi from both Amherst and Williams. While I can take or leave football (no offense @mackcollier), it is remarkable to sit with Amherst gentlemen from the class of 1950, to meet three young women all Amherst alums now University of Arizona Ph.D. candidates or to enjoy lunch with William Foster, Ph.D. (Williams Class of 1982) who is a fourth generation Williams' graduate. His great grandfather was Williams 1887! Yes, Amherst College is a not-for-profit entity: "Students graduate from Amherst with no debt. Since the 2008-09 school year, students are no longer required to take out student loans as part of their financial aid awards. Amherst is among only a handful of colleges and universities in the country that do not require their students to acquire student loan debt in order to pay for their undergraduate educations."  Think about that!

I really couldn't sit still to watch the whole game (Williams 31 Amherst 16), so I decided to walk over to a little boutique called The WEST. I spotted this store as we were finding our way to the Skybox Restaurant. The window displays were filled with holiday decorations and it caught my eye...so I visited The West and found really wonderful items that were on sale. Then upon check out I learned more about The WEST. The West (Womens' Exchange Specialties of Tucson) is a volunteer-run 501 (c) 3 corporation - "each year the profits from our store are given as grants to other local charitable organization, with an emphasis on those supporting women and children."  Since 1981 over $2 million has been granted to more than 42 different Tucson agencies. Think about that! 

On Saturday evening we were invited guests to enjoy Arizona Opera's production of CARMEN. Arizona Opera performs in both Phoenix and Tucson and we were introduced to Scott Altman, the General Director, by the Costumer Designer, Patricia A. Hibbert. We have known Patty for years, but had lost track of her and she found us in Tucson via FACEBOOK!  It was a wonderful evening of opera and we were happy to learn:
"Arizona Opera is a professional opera company, which produces fully-staged opera performances, concerts, an in-school touring production and education and outreach programs that reach over 35,000 school children and adults annually. Founded in 1971 in Tucson, the company has grown to become one of the few companies in the United States to serve multiple cities."  Think about that!

As I said earlier: eventually not-for-profit 501c organizations impact our lives.

How about you? Do you work with or for a non-profit? I would love to get your input.What is your favorite non-profit organization?

Related articles

• Go Right at 501 Mission Place (webconsuls.com)
• 501 Mission Place is for NonProfits and Charities (chrisbrogan.com)
• Amherst Looks to Deny Williams a Perfect Season (nytimes.com)
• Win Over Amherst Is Perfect for Williams (nytimes.com)

Too Busy to Write? My September 2010 Review

As usual, today Chris Brogan's post "The Discipline to Write Daily" was thought provoking and it reminded me that during the month of September 2010 I did not publish one single post here on my OP-ED page. This is not to say that I was on total radio silence for the last month, but just active writing for Webconsuls, working with our clients, commenting on others' interesting posts...

Today I thought it might be fun to point you to some of my favorite September reads. If you read these posts, you will see I left a comment, so take a few minutes and scroll through the comments, you will learn a lot about people.

• September 1, Chris Brogan wrote about "Selling Wool or Yarn" ---I have done both!
• September 8, Ridgely Johnson talked about "My Kindle, My BFF" --- I don't have a Kindle.
• September 16, I published "Rose Knows What to Do When Novelty Wears Off"  --- A lot of people enjoyed meeting Rose!
• September 17, Allison Boyer writing for Blog World chatted about "Twitter Chats: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"  --- for those who join in chats this is a great primer.
• September 22, John McLachlan asked "Why Blog?" --- Why indeed?
• September 22, Jorja White talked about "Empathy 101 and Adam Braverman" --- Jorja is busy with family and writing an e-Book, but on September 29 she did a follow-up  "Misunderstanding and Adam Braverman"
• September 22, Julien Smith wrote  "Your Happiness is Not Your Own"
• September 23, Lisa Petrilli talked about "How I am Measuring My Blog's Summer Harvest" --- I was honored to be mentioned by Lisa.
• September 29, Chris Brogan started an interesting discussion "How Not to Have Mind Numbing Office Meetings" --- to which I commented...

Chris,

I have known some employees/workers who just love meetings. You know why? You can easily fill up your whole "workday" with meetings and not open your brain or your mouth. I promised on Twitter that I would give you a couple of funny meeting anecdotes, so here you go.

I was a banker for many years. In the old days, many banks were required to have standing committee meetings for things like commercial loan applications, directors and officers, etc. One day I realized that I was going to be in three consecutive meetings with just a 30 minute lunch break. It was a cold winter day in northern New Hampshire (Littleton). The meeting room was cold and uncomfortable. So during the break I walked across Main St into a wonderful store and purchased a Lanz of Salzburg flannel nightgown. I went back to the bank, put the nightgown on over my wool business suit, walked into the empty room and waited. The rest of the "committee" arrived and it took 20 minutes before the bank President looked at me and started to crack up with laughter. I told him I was preparing for a long cold day into night. The meeting was wrapped up quickly.

Many years later I was working as a Senior Business Analyst on a high profile project for a casualty and property insurance company. The CTO was directly in charge of this project, even though there was a "project manager." The CTO had a habit of answering many direct questions by saying: "We'll see." I must add that when we had our weekly project meeting on Friday mornings we each had name cards, so one day I created a name card with the name "Will Cee" and placed it at the chair next to mine. The meeting started and about 15 minutes into the "agenda" the CTO asked if Will was coming to the meeting, to which I responded "We'll see!"

In closing, I will be pretty busy over the next few weeks. Don't worry, I will take plenty of photos. And, don't forget I will be meeting some of you in person at Blog World Expo 2010.

In the meantime, you can enjoy my wedding photo album that covers family weddings from 1901 through 1978.

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Man on the Go Listens With Big Ears

Image by Michael Mistretta via Flickr

This past May Chris Brogan launched a new travel blog: Man on the Go. Have you seen it?  If you follow Chris on Twitter or read Chris Brogan, then you know Chris travels a lot: long trips, short trips, by plane, by train, by auto, regionally, national, internationally, with business associates, on his own or with family and friends. Chris will stay in touch, via twitter, with his followers, so one can get drawn into the drama of the travel day. This can include delayed flights, cancelled flights, lost phones, noisy children, noisy adults, rain, heat, etc. At some point Chris decided to share via a blog (really more a video blog) travel tips about hotels, restaurants, airlines, travel gear, etc. He also recruited some of his friends, business associates, and travel industry employees to be guest bloggers on Man on the Go.

Here is what I like about Man on the Go: none of the bloggers (including Chris) claim to be experts, but they've logged a lot of hours in their particular field (hotelier, restaurateur, health practitioner, business traveler or pleasure traveler) and can address the subject in an engaging way. PLUS: if you write a comment, make a suggestion or ask an additional question THEY LISTEN with Big Ears and RESPOND.

Let me give you an example. Recently Chris wrote a post about First Moves When Getting to a Hotel. You might be interested, I was. I wrote a comment that was based on my personal experience and my resume as a former owner/innkeeper.  Chris seemed genuinely pleased to read my tip, writing: "Oh, that's a good tip, Judy. Thank you!"
____________________________________
But wait, this week I had a different experience with another TRAVEL BLOG (with slightly smaller ears). I visited this blog because someone that I follow on Twitter is a travel writer. She tweeted about another blog and I thought I would take a few minutes to visit a travel blog that deals with traveling with children. In my mind I said to myself..."I have traveled with children of all ages and by many modes...so let's see what is new!" Imagine my surprise when I got to this blog post and it dealt with a weekend trip to the Mount Washington Valley in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Yes, the same valley where for 11 years I had owned and operated a country inn that slept 120 guests. So here is what I wrote in a comment to this travel writer/blogger:

"I happened by here today because XXXXXX RT your tweet and I was curious to see your blog. Much to my surprise you were writing about traveling with teens and tweens to the Mount Washington Valley. From late 1986-late 1997 I was an owner/operator of a country Inn/Bed & Breakfast in the Village of Kearsarge, Town of Conway, Carroll County, New Hampshire. Kearsarge is a lovely village northeast of the Village of North Conway, so to speak. It is so wonderful to read your various posts of all the adventures you were able to enjoy with your children. I remember as an innkeeper we would hope that the Boston Globe travel editor or Yankee Magazine would visit the valley…and then wait for printed publications. OMG…if you were lucky enough to be mentioned you had to hope it was good and accurate information."

"I am familiar with the XXXXX XXXX Resort. I remember when it first opened in the late 80s. I know it is a nice setting and they have continued to enhance the property, but I really think if I were traveling with teens and tweens I would want to be staying closer to the center of North Conway Village. The reason I say this is that to be five miles south of North Conway Village when traffic is an issue (or at least it used to be) can be a nightmare with children. If you stay in the center or nearby, the children can enjoy shopping, movies, Conway Scenic Railroad, live summer stock theatre, Arts Jubilee, Mt. Cranmore, Saco River …all within easy walking distance or a quick bike ride."

"Last year I wrote a blog about Mt. Washington. You might enjoy reading it."

I want to be very clear here. Normally when I comment on a blog post I use my full name, my business email address and business website to identify myself. But out of respect for this travel writer, who was clear to point out that her trip had been "arranged" by the Chamber of Commerce, I chose not to use my business email address or website and never mentioned which property I had owned. I didn't insert links to all of the venues I referenced, I simply gave my opinion from YEARS of experience and I offered the link to my post about the one and only Mount Washington.

Imagine my surprise when my comment was "moderated", "edited" AND "published" on a post that I did not comment on. Do you understand what I am saying here?  I wrote a comment on POST A and the travel writer moved it to POST D! Here is the edited version of my comment:

"I really think if I were traveling with teens and tweens I would want to be staying closer to the center of North Conway Village. The reason I say this is that to be five miles south of North Conway Village when traffic is an issue (or at least it used to be) can be a nightmare with children. If you stay in the center or nearby, the children can enjoy shopping, movies, Conway Scenic Railroad, live summer stock theatre, Arts Jubilee, Mt. Cranmore, Saco River …all within easy walking distance or a quick bike ride."

The travel writer sent me an explanatory email that said: "Just FYI, I moved your comment to the XXXXXXXXXXX (resort) page and shortened it up a bit. You have a valid point although if you are doing things like shopping and monkey trunks or thinking about canoeing then the south end of the strip is better. We took West Side Road and never had traffic problems if we wanted to get to the center of North Conway during rush hours. I think we only hit one minor traffic jam in 3 days and that was up at the junction to 302 heading south.  Thanks for stopping by."
________________________________________________________

Now here is my question to you: Am I being over sensitive regarding this matter? Have you ever encountered something like this? I understand not approving a comment for spamming (with or without links) or questionable language...reject it. But edit? Please, let me know what you think?

By the way, here is a link to a really provocative article Travel (and Writing) Free and Easy.

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The Importance of Story In Your Life

A great photo to highlight the importance of story! Joann Eagen, Agnes Eagen, Pat Kimball, and Judy Eagen, Winter 1951

I am writing this blog today because Chris Brogan has challenged his readers to write about the "importance of story in your life." Chris was talking about Don Miller's latest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life and from this came the challenge. Apparently if I am timely enough with this post I might receive a free copy of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. In an earlier post, February 21, 2010, Chris Brogan encouraged his readers to use social media to "Turn your lens on your family. Tell family stories for future generations."

For those of you who know me (i.e., my immediate family, team members, relatives, friends, previous co-workers, blog readers), I am most generally known as the storyteller. If you give me a subject I can probably tell you a story from my life that relates to that subject. While many may roll their eyes, get the "hook" or give me the old wind-up signal when I start to tell a story, these are the same people who will ask if the yearly holiday letter is ready to mail or have I posted to the Webconsuls' blog lately.

When I was assigned to be the Saturday morning blogger for Webconsuls I allowed myself the freedom to write about any topic, it did not have to be technical in any fashion. So you can imagine my blog topics have been all over the map.

My father liked to share stories about his life and I liked listening to him tell a good story. Today I am thinking back to couple of years ago when I shared with my two sons a letter that had been written by my father in 1950.

The day I shared this was Father's Day 2008 and since my father had passed away in 1979 neither of my sons had the opportunity to know my dad. I decided that I would send a copy of this letter to Aaron and Daniel, so that they might have some insight into their maternal grandfather, Joseph Raymond Eagen. The letter was written to my mother on December 16, 1950, addressed from Hungnam, Korea. My father was aboard the USS Kaskaskia. According to Wikipedia "During December she arrived off Hungnam to service ships engaged in evacuation operations in that area. Throughout the harsh winter months, Kaskaskia continued vital fueling missions between Japan and Korea." If you choose to read the letter it is here. Just click on each jpg and they will enlarge.

Daddy's letter, page 2

Daddy's letter, page 1

Happily both Aaron and Daniel enjoyed reading my dad's letter. Aaron referred to it as "fascinating" and Daniel called it "amazing, like nothing I ever read before." A story well received, all brought about because my brother, Michael Eagen, found the letter, created jpgs, emailed me the letter and I was able to email it to my children. Fabulous.

I must tell you that if you read the letter you will know that my dad talks about buying and mailing some special jackets. Daniel wanted to know if I still had the jacket! Well, I don't, but I do have a great photo of me with my sisters and Pat Kimball. Now you know the story behind the photo at the top of today's post.We are all wearing our "jackets". It is Winter 1951.

So this is today's important story. Enjoy! And, by all means, let me know what you think of it.