A Minnesota Blogger Conference 2013 Q & A Session with Greg Swan

As a member of the event planning committee, about a month ago I had the pleasure of doing a remote interview for the Minnesota Blogger Conference website. The post highlighted one of our Closing keynote panelists - Greg Swan. I finally had the opportunity to meet Greg face to face on the day of the conference. Below is a link to that post. Please take a few moments to hop over & check it out.

http://mnbloggerconference.com/2013/10/07/q-a-with-mnblogcon-closing-keynote-panel-speaker-greg-swan/

Greg is below on the far right wearing the Google Glass

  

Mn Blogger Conference 2011 - Take Two

Here we are - one year later and another Minnesota Blogger Conference is in the books. Founders Arik Hanson & Missy Berggren along with their planning committee members, Josh Braaten, Beth Rubin-Gabor, Bridget Nelson Monroe,and "birthday girl" Suzi Magill put on a wonderful event, improving on last year in so many ways, including the venue, parking, food & being able to accommodate twice as many attendees.

The Keynote: Blogs to Riches was by Lee Odden of TopRank Marketing, who was also a sponsor.  

He left us with five main ideas:

1. "No Blog Plan is a Plan to Fail"

2. "Adapt & Thrive"

3. "It's Not All About You" (Show interest in other people)

4. "Ask. Recognize. Repeat." (To invite participation with the readers of your blog - your community)

5. "The End is Near, Let's Start" (telling us to not be stopped in our tracks when we think we've run out of ideas to write about & how to find more)

First time I had been in the same room as Lee after following him & hearing so much about him & his other speaking engagements worldwide. It was nice to see how down to earth he really was.

So many of the people I knew would be there I literally only had time to say hello, hug-it-out & see you later since we were planning to attend different sessions.  I had planned out my day & even though it was turning out that I might not have done as much socializing as I originally intended I wanted to get certain things out of the experience.

My first break-out session was with Mandy Dwyer of Glimpses of Soul Photography.  All I can say is that Mandy had me wishing I could afford a DSLR camera, not to mention a new PC or Mac so I can load some new photo editing software.  I am already thinking even more about capturing photography vs just taking snapshots.  She delivered a crash course in lighting, composition editing & how to use photos to tell a story. Her notes are already up on her website if you are interested.  

Mandy also donated her time doing head shots, so of course I couldn't pass that opportunity up! Can't wait to see how they turned out. I heard $329.00 was raised for the event's charity: "READ INDEED" from the photos alone. Tremendous job!

Jen Emmert,  

Meghan Wilker,   

Stephanie Meyer & Ian Schwartz  were the panel members of "Building Communities Online and Offline" - my second session which was moderated by Kate O'Reilly.  

Some key takeaways:

1. Reminding people that they have permission to participate.

2. Give people multiple channels to engage with your community - not just your favorite one.

3. Have a great host - you have to be an organizer who delegates.

4. Reach out to people who may not have made your event & find out why, i.e. the "maybes"

5. It's OK to call the haters on your blog out! Just do it in a way that's not defensive & holds them accountable. (loved this one)

After a lovely & satisfying taco bar lunch and a couple of nice conversations with fellow attendees, which was free thanks to our sponsors Kare11, Top Rank Marketing & Allina Hospitals & Clinics, I went to "Advertisements, Endorsements and the Casual 'Like'" - led by Hayden O. Creque Esq. of Creque Law. 

NO SLEEPING was possible in this session. It was very lively & interactive to say the least!

If you are interested in a recap of what was discussed, visit Hayden's website where you will find a downloadable copy of the presentation. 

Just keep in mind these things:

1. "The Average blogger is held to a higher standard than celebrities."

2. "If there's a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed."

3. "Value doesn't matter...It could be $1 or $1,000...It's about the relationship."

Hayden also made me laugh when he said in his Midwestern-modified Trinidad accent: "Straight Cash Homie" aka Randy Moss.

The final session I chose was Moving Your Blog to Wordpress, (so Blogger cover your ears,) by Tim Elliott.

Tim talked about wordpress.com versus wordpress.org.  

"With WordPress.com the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of by the team here at Automattic.  With WordPress.org you need to install the software on your own server or with a 3rd party provider."

He walked us through the costs of the different options. He promises that "#wordpress is not that complicated once you get to know it ;-) " Luckily for me Blogger to Wordpress is one of the more streamlined transitions & size of the blog is not an issue - multiple attempts to import will eventually bring everything over. 

The biggest tip he gave us is something called WordPress TV.  I you have questions - this is the best resource he offered us - for people of all levels of tech-savviness. Tim also made his presentation available so we did not have to write or type furiously - we could try to concentrate on asking questions if need be.

Overall this year's conference flew by & I wish I had the opportunity to also sit in on some sessions by a few of my favorite people Erica Mayer, Kate Hopper, Paul DeBettignies & Patrick Rhone, so I hope they all also made their presentations available so I can go & check them out on my own time. Since I can't clone myself, that will have to do. 

The best part of the day? The conversations between the sessions - meeting new bloggers & seeing those you've met before, but don't get face time with often. It's something we all strive to do - making real connections offline.

Till next year...

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy: My Lens Into The First Ever MN Blogger Conference

or Interview w/ Mn Blogger - Monika Melsha at Mn Blogger Conference

Stream of Consciousness Sunday ~ Full Brain

It's Week 9 of my Stream of Consciousness Sunday posts. I took last week off because as a family we took our first overnight road trip together up north in Duluth, MN.  

I'm back in the saddle & am feeling mentally stuffed - my brain full - after an entire day of networking, learning & plain old socializing at Minnesota Blogger Conference 2011. 

I won't use this post as my recap - that will be another day, however I did want to say it was a totally different experience going into the event this year than last.  There was an anxiousness that I felt last year because I was totally green as a blogger.  I had no idea what to expect & I knew hardly anyone who would be there.  I had tweeted with folks but had met very few face to face.

This year I was surprised to have a couple people approach me & say "you look familiar, what's your blog's name" or "I think I follow you", which blew me away.  I had a few very in-depth conversations that left me knowing so much more about the other person than I thought I'd know coming out of this experience.

There's such a genuine feeling you get when you talk to people in the Twin Cities Blogging community.  It's like nothing else I've experienced.  It's warm, welcoming & inclusive.  For that I'm thankful. My guess is that many of us may be introverts & appreciate spending time with other people who want to get to us better & on a much deeper level ~ people who genuinely care what you have to say & take it to heart.

 

It's also a day of reflection in memory of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. None of us, however, will ever forget where we were that day & how we first learned of the horrific tragedy. Amongst those who lost loved ones, there are also the positive stories of children born on that fateful day.  May the Lord give us the strength to balance the pain with the joy and cherish the memories of the innocence we all lost watching those towers fall.  I'm very thankful that, as a country, we survived that traumatic day & grew stronger as a result.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.

§         Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.

§         Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.

§         Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.

§         Link up your post at all.things.fadra

§         Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy: My 9/11 Memories on Tumblr or  My Lens Into The First Ever MN Blogger Conference or Stream of Consciousness Sunday - The Pieces That Make Us Whole

Interview w/ Mn Blogger - Monika Melsha at Mn Blogger Conference

Please follow this link & check out my recent "Get To Know" interview (9/11/2010) with David Erickson aka @derickson:

Interview With Monika Melsha 

Interested in reading more about the 1st Mn Blogger Conference? Check out:My Lens Into The First Ever MN Blogger Conference

My Lens Into The First Ever MN Blogger Conference

Today I was fortunate enough to be a part of the first ever MN Blogger Conference. A truly diverse group of individuals were in attendance.  See for yourself as they took this fun group photo us.  Not surprisingly, open spots filled up within a couple of hours. If this event didn't get the creative juices flowing ~ motivating you to step up your game & improve your blog writing, nothing will.

 

I had the opportunity to meet IRL so many people I've been conversing for on twitter for months. When will we have an opportunity such as this to have so many of us in the same room? Probably not till next year at this same event.

A special thank you goes out to the event planners/promoters: 

Katie ~  aka @kshoop on twitter
Suzi ~ aka @suzi_MN on twitter

Missy ~ aka @MarketingMamaMN on twitter

Arik ~ aka @arikhanson on twitter

Where to start.  The day began with a retrospective flavor thanks to a panel including some of Minnesota's blogging pioneers & moderated by one of my virtual mentors: David Erickson.

• James Lileks who described blogging as "Unbridled narcissism",
• Patrick Rhone, who confessed he has "more blogs than sense" and encourages us to coin ourselves "online writers and artists",
• Teresa Boardman, who essentially created a new business model for realtors as a result of her blog,
• and Nancy Lyons a "passionate geek and technology evangelist."

I absolutely loved the first break-out session I chose:  "Growing as Writers: Taking Your Blog Posts to the Next Level", lead by Kate Hopper - one of the few people I met today that does not tweet! I had a nice conversation with her before the final session of the day as well.  Kate teaches classes on Creative non-fiction & laid out four essential things that make up a successful blog post:

1. Reflection: Looking back & processing in order to make sense of life's events.
2. Apparent & Deeper Subject ~ What's on the surface vs. the real story.
3. Attention to Craft ~ Language choice, using concrete details, sense of place.
4. The Universal/Timelessness of meaning ~ the connections in the things we share & having some distance to reflect & a sense of digging or grappling to make sense of it all.
   

She stressed the importance of creating a story for your readers to latch on to.  What are a few of the most important tools to use to achieve that? Sensory details, Scene, Rituals & Photos.

Session #2 for me was a panel discussion on "Blogging for Business: Making Connections & Building Buzz" including  Kevin Hunt, Adam Singer, & Jamie Guse.  They work for & with a variety of sizes of organizations, so they brought a good mix of ideas to the table.

Some key tips: 

• Build a roadmap & decide up front where you want to focus your attention.
• Allocate resources across the organization.
• The highest value is in discovering where your targets are already congregating.
• If you are not "giving stuff away" or "offering discounts", you can still engage your audience by sharing your organization's stories & by encouraging your customers to tell the community about their own experiences.
• Moderate comments, but don't eliminate all the negatives - Outline commenting guidelines for the community & then leverage your internal consumer relations tools to promptly & appropriately respond to issues & concerns.

During the lunch break  I had the honor of sitting down & doing a video interview with Dave Erickson.  I'm looking forward to sharing the link to it out here as soon as it's available. Check back often & watch for it!

After the afternoon keynote, Session 3 was "Analytics for Bloggers" with Aaron Landry.  I sat next to Jen of Growing with Graces and I bet from the notes she was furiously taking during this session that she just might post on this subject in the near future, so hop over & watch for it.  The key takeaways for me were to make better use of the Intelligence feature within Google Analytics as well as utilizing bit.ly's URL shorteners in order to track additional post links that have been shared.

Ms. Erica Mauter did a laid back session #4 about "Generating Blog Content" & shared quite a few writing exercises to do in order to free up the creative lava when you get stuck, are new to blogging, or are feeling like you could use a new reason to continue blogging. She offered some great resources for daily inspiration, beyond simply getting "out of your pajamas"  like Twin Cities Daily Planet, 3minuteegg.org & stevepavlina.com.

I also participated earlier in the day (having photos taken for a new headshot) in the fundraising efforts @fortheloveofliz (liz logelin foundation) They were able to raise $550.00 in just a few hours.

The Closing Keynote "How my blog helped save my ass" was by Matt Logelin & I can't think of a better way to have ended the session. Matt's raw & vulnerable recount of the horrific experience of losing his wife, a day after the premature birth of his baby girl made us all laugh & cry at various intervals.  It was like coming full circle from the 1st session in that this was a story like none other & the scene was set for us as if we were living it ourselves.  It was heartwarming & heart-wrenching all at the same time.  Since I had only heard bits & pieces of his story from other bloggers in the past, I truly appreciated hearing it in Matt's own words. If you'd like to hear Matt recount his very personal story, just follow this link to the Up Take.

If you were unable to attend today's event hopefully this will give you a taste of why this was such a successful conference.  We all came away feeling energized & satisfied, like a seven course meal.  Here's to doing it all again same time next year.

UPDATE:  Jen's post Google Analytics 101 is now up on the MN Blogger Conference website, so check it out!

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