SITS Baltimore Bloggy Bootcamp ’10

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME!! That describes the SITS Bloggy Boot­camp I attended in Bal­ti­more. This was the fourth blog­ging con­fer­ence I’ve attended in the last year and the small­est, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had heard some pos­i­tive feed­back from the SITSca­tion in Las Vegas last Octo­ber (and so jeal­ous I couldn’t attend), so I was expected to be WOWed. And I was!

I don’t like com­par­ing con­fer­ences because each one has it’s own pur­pose and I’ll do another post on that. Bloggy Boot­camp was a 1 day con­fer­ence with less than 100 atten­dees. The vibe from this con­fer­ence is one of inclu­sion. No one feels left out. I hadn’t met @SITSgirls before, but by the time I left Bloggy Boot­camp, I found myself refer­ring to her as Tiff. (Sorry Tiffany if you don’t like that short­ened ver­sion of your name, but it shows how open and warm you are). Every­one was really open and warm and it felt like I’d known them all for years (most I just met).

How it started

Tiffany started the Bloggy Boot­camp because she wanted to bring some­thing small to the local areas and she didn’t want one per­son to stand alone and feel out of place. She def­i­nitely accom­plished that with the Bloggy Boot­camps. And on top of that I learned a lot. I was con­cerned about the ses­sions because there weren’t any choices. We all sat through the same ses­sions, but there was def­i­nitely some­thing for every­one. With each of the speak­ers, we all had assigned tables. I was a tad ner­vous about this at first, but this is set up so that we all meet many new peo­ple and no one ever sits alone. By the end of the day, I loved it!

Bloggy Boot­camp Morning

In the more begin­ner ses­sion, there was a lot of inter­ac­tion between the speak­ers, @SITSGirls @mamakatslosinit, @Scary­Mommy and those of us lis­ten­ing. I learned some new tips and tricks. It never hurts to take a refresher course on the top­ics you think you know a lot about.

Then @resourcefulmommy rocked the PR Roadmap. I came away with a plan of action to make my blog more PR friendly and what to do in dif­fer­ent situations.

Bloggy Boot­camp Lunch

We took a break for lunch where we also had assigned tables. The con­ver­sa­tion at the table was just an exten­sion of the ses­sions. I learned a lot from my lunch­mates and enjoyed hear­ing about their blogs and shar­ing infor­ma­tion. The food was deli­cious. I do not know what the sauce was on the chicken breast, but it used a roll to be sure I soaked up every last bit of the sauce. Then the deca­dent (to steal FitBloggin’s, Roni’s word) choco­late cake was mouth water­ing yummy. Think lay­ers of moist choco­late cake with fudgy choco­late between the lay­ers. Then on top there was a smooth milky choco­lately fudgey frost­ing like top­ping with choco­late chips sprin­kled on top. Add a bit of rasp­berry (I think that’s what it was) sauce, whipped cream (I left that on the plate) and a straw­berry and you have the most deca­dent choco­late cake I have every tasted. I ate every last bit!

Bloggy Boot­camp Afternoon

After lunch, @feel­s­like­home showed me that SEO mat­ters and it doesn’t have to be scary and com­pli­cated. She broke it down into man­age­able steps and great exam­ples and instruc­tions. I once again have a plan of action for my blog and SEO. UPDATE: Tara posted her Bloggy Boot­camp SEO pre­sen­ta­tion on her blog.

The after­noon net­work­ing ses­sion was a bit more relaxed and no assigned tables. We all had a chance to meet many peo­ple so no one had to sit alone. We just chat­ted, net­worked, ate jello pud­ding, took pic­tures, exchanged biz cards, laughed, tweeted, whrrled and enjoyed our new friendships.

Then @jus­tice­fer­gie (who I had planned to meet, but never go to) explained some of the FTC guide­lines to us in sim­ple and plain eng­lish! I didn’t think that was pos­si­ble, but she did it and now I feel more con­fi­dent that I’m doing all that I should be doing.

At the end of the Bloggy Boot­camp, I was sad for it to be over. I met so many won­der­ful peo­ple and learned so much. Sat­ur­day night will get it’s own blog post. @TheBudgeBunch and I had an inter­est­ing eventing.

Bloggy Boot­camp Thanks Video

I am much bet­ter at show­ing my appre­ci­a­tion that writ­ing about it, so I cre­ated this video to thank the SITS Girls for a won­der­ful Bloggy Boot­camp. I know this song is a “love” song, but if you think of it in terms of friend­ships & blog­ging, this is the per­fect song.…

More to come on my new friends, what I learned and my Sat­ur­day night adven­ture. Thank you to the Pier 5 hotel. They were very gra­cious hosts and every­one was super nice. The rooms were very warm, just like the entire conference.

Bloggy Boot­camp will be in sev­eral other cities in 2010. Go to the Bloggy Boot­camp web­site and see if they are com­ing to a city near you. It is def­i­nitely worth attend­ing. I know I plan on attend­ing the one in Philly.

Tagged as: Baltimore, blogging conference, Bloggy Bootcamp, geek, sits girls, sitscation, sitsgirls