My fellow speaker Maura and I didn’t think that we would have gone to blogher had we not been asked to speak. That said - I’m glad I did.
Among my concerns about attending blogher was that it would like being back in high school, wishing that I could sit with the cools kids and feeling like a bit of an outcast. This, of course, wasn’t the case. Every single person I met at blogher was kind, warm, and welcoming.
I met new people everywhere I went; during my session, in other sessions, during breaks, cocktail parties, around the hotel and even in the ladies’ room. Everywhere I turned there was a smiling face belonging to another blogger with whom I could meet and talk about what all had in common.
The first session I attended about increasing your audience base (audience building) with my idol Elise Bauer was intensely informative A few things that stood out to me where:
- Linking to people and having your site linked to other people increases your Google ranking. Increased Google ranking = more hits.
- Leave comments.
- Add pictures to posts. People like pictures and it breaks up the text.
- Write well. Use spell check
- Write good headlines. Google loves headlines and the more keywords in a headline, the more likely it is to get hits
- Good HTML structure. the h1 tag is your friend, it means more to Google - points out a headline
- Make your site easy to read (give the reader lots of "white" space, add spaces between your paragraphs, and make your paragraphs short).
- Make your site easy to load. Flash and similar types of add-ons reduce page loading time.
Get Deeply Geeky
I was inspired by the deeply geeky session. As a feminist and a woman, I can personally relate to the conversation on a glass ceiling and not being taken seriously because of my gender or looks. I experience frustration upon seemingly not being taken seriously when I speak or express my opinions or knowledge. This session inspired me to connect and gain power and inspiration from other woman bloggers and women in general.
The session was very open – guided mostly by audience members who picked up the microphone and expressed themselves freely. I was inspired by the intelligence of those who spoke.
The previous evening I was fortunate enough to be seated at table with Laura Scott, a panelist on this session. I was totally blown away and inspired by her brilliance, which partially motivated me to attend this session.
This was not a single occurrence, for every woman who I spoke with, introduced myself to and exchanged business cards with during the entire conference totally blew me away.
These women were:
- brilliant
- inspired
- driven
- ambitious
- friendly
- warm
- articulate
During this session two young entrepreneurs were asked to speak and those two girls blew me away more than anything else at this conference. Here were two smart, articulate and confident young women (12 years old – preteens) who had accomplished so much that I was blinded by the… “future is so bright, I gotta wear shades”
From Here to Autonomy
I have to admit to being a bit of a blog groupie. When I first arrived at the Hyatt I bumped into one of the bloggers who I was most excited to meet. I was surprised that I had the confidence to approach this [person who inspires me – someone I look up to] and introduce myself.
[I’m not a shy person – I’m pretty outgoing in fact, but I have shy tendencies, especially with meeting new people. However these tendencies were apparently abandoned during this conference.]
I attended the session on blogger entrepreneurs (making money from your blog) to listen to Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com [and another blogger] share their experiences with open our eyes to full-time paid blogging opportunities
This was another amazingly inspiring session – filling my head with ideas for how I can become my own business and be gain independence.
Keynote
Hands-down the more inspiring session, the Keynote included a panel of four (+1 moderator) intelligent, successful, and inspiring blogtrepreneurs.
The focus of the session (forum) panel was fearlessness which really touched a chord with me and I’m guessing many others in the room.
This session made me realize that I’m held back by fear in my life. One example of this is my fear of public speaking.
Fear of Public Speaking
Like many people, I’ve always had a fear of public speaking and speaking with people in general. This fear lead me to put off the required public speaking requirement for my Marketing BS until my last semester when it (conveniently) wasn’t offered. Looking back on it now, it would have been a good idea to bite the bullet way back then. Addressing that fear back then might have made me a more confident person, perhaps allowing me to accomplish more.
Nonetheless, I waited until I was in my thirties to face this fear.
When Elisa Camahort approached me to speak at blogher, this fear of public speaking really kicked in. While I was very afraid of speaking, I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I could not pass up. It was time to face my fear and conquer it.
The time between my first contact with Elisa and the conference (roughly four months or so) was a stressful time for me. In addition to the stress of the impending presentation at blogher, my web design business was growing beyond my expectations, my full-time job was busier than it’s ever been, and to top it off, my friendship with my closest friend was in a really bad place.
During these months, I both dreaded and looked forward to the conference. The closer it came, the more I just wanted it and the accompanying nagging anxiety over. My one-track blogher-focused mind couldn’t see anything beyond that. All I could see was the sweet relief of it being over.
It wasn’t all dread, though. I also had this excitement; this feeling that something big was going to happen. I sensed that this opportunity would open doors for me that would start great things.
I wasn’t dreading it because I didn’t want to do it – I wanted to do it more than anything which was powerful enough to bypass the fear.
It’s Over
I learned this valuable lesson about handling fear when I was a kid. I actually surprise myself that I was this aware as a kid, to overcome fear.
What happened was that every summer I’d get really scared to go back to school because I was always so afraid of a million things like being able to find my way around or make friends. But what I learned over time was that I always imagine it in my head a heck of a lot worse than things end up being. Like, I always imagined myself getting lost and being alone at lunch and so on. But it always turned out that in a couple of days, I was in a routine and happy and I realized that my fears were unfounded.
It was through experiences like these that I began to accept that my worries were usually unfounded and blown way out of proportion. I can’t tell you now much learning this has helped me with fear. I use it quite a bit, like when I start a new job or are thrust into a new and foreign experience. I just remember that in the past, thing were always worse in my head than in reality.
And it’s true – speaking in public was easier than I expected. I think that because of that previous lesson, I knew it would be OK. I also knew that I was pretty outgoing to begin with and I loved to be the center of attention. I really enjoyed the feel of the microphone in my hand and enjoyed speaking about something that I was passionate about and knew inside and out.
Sure I was nervous, but there was so no getting out of it so I jumped and I did it. The relief was amazing (or was it adrenaline?). After my session, rid of the residual fear, I felt lighter and there was that spring to my step and the joi de vivre that had been absent in my personality as of late.
I’m glad that we were the first session because it enabled me to go out there and enjoy the conference. And I did enjoy it! It was a great opportunity to meet other bloggers and network. It has really got me thinking about possibilities for my business and my web sites. It’s really inspired me to take more risks and get out there and do it.
