One of the double edged swords of attending blogfests is meeting lots and lots of people. Double edged because yay! meeting people I’ve never met but spend so much time talking to online (or people I have met and *still* spend lots of time talking to online 😉 ) but also aargh! lots of people that I won’t remember who they are even though I’ve met them before and/or spend lots of time with online.
Yes, traumatic.
I should possibly remind people at this point of the recently diagnosed quirks of my neurology. (In case you can’t be bothered to click through, I’m autistic. It doesn’t really show. I made it 40+ years without knowing myself.)
Don’t get me wrong, I like conferences. I’ve been to quite a few, from the first Cybermummy with a six month old Smallest, a blogcamp, couple of Cybhers and now three blogfests. At each of them I’ve done techie things – blog clinic, and even last year, a panel.
(That’s not my panel, I don’t seem to have a picture of that!)
This year we had a roundtable for our techie tips, which meant I was only occupied for one session, and had plenty of time to circulate, and meet people.
Except.
Except I had this kind of mental tick list of people I wanted to meet, and once I get there, I’m hopeless. I can’t put names to faces to blogs. If you introduce yourself with your twitter handle I stand half a chance – last year with the bumpable badges (as described on Jo Sandelson’s Heir Raising) at least I got a record at the end.
This year? Nope. I think I handed out three cards, and I don’t think I was given any. (If you gave me a card, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did with it!)
I know I spoke to AnOunceOfMe over coffee in the morning about spam solutions on wordpress. (On wordpress.com basically you’ve got akismet. You can’t install plugins. On self-hosted wordpress there are a lot more options. There are on blogger as well.)
And Elizabeth and Helen from Speech Blog UK caught up with me during the roundtable.
Of course I managed to meet Anne-Marie from Child Led Chaos. Given it was sort of my fault that she was there (thanks Skimlinks!) it was really great to get to spend time with her. I may have shrieked slightly when I met her. And I even have a pictorial record 🙂
@Dr_Black @5050Parliament @MumsnetTowers @liveotherwise GREAT meeting & thanks for support #blogfest #5050parliament pic.twitter.com/zDBGrA0bRl
— @fscott5050 (@FScott5050) November 8, 2014
Yes, I got to meet Sue Black properly as well. And Rachel, and Jo, and I had the evening with Rachael and Monika, and there were lots of people that I wanted to talk to properly and I only got to squeeze in passing, like Hayley and Kiran and Adele.
And lots of people whose names I didn’t get. Who was it who took a picture of me in the morning? Hello, whoever you are. I should have taken one back! (Bumpable badges next year, please.)
I did see a lot of people actually didn’t I? Jen, and Chris, and Sandy, and Liska, Emma (baby!) and Beth! (nearly forgot Beth, I tweet lots with Beth often at this time of night 😉 ) (If I’ve not put you in here and I did talk to you, I’m sorry – I’m really sorry!)
But I’m sure there were lots of people I didn’t see. Or that I spoke to and didn’t click who they were. In the morning I was slightly hyper and excited, (up at 5.45, 3 cups of coffee before food. Wheeee…..) I crashed just before lunch although the fabulous think bomb from Francesca Martinez revived me somewhat. And food. Should have eaten more than one pastry for breakfast.
I hid in the green room for a little while. It was quiet, and had chairs, and you could get a drink without queueing or having to explain what you wanted, and Rachel and Sue and I talked about knitting and crochet. (And our roundtable session, yes, we talked about our session) (Oh, and I saw Sarah in there.)
But that wasn’t available for everyone. And I’m not always speaking at these things. (Why am I not always speaking at these things? I don’t put myself about enough, technically speaking, do I? *subliminal* hire me */end subliminal*) So, what would I like? What would improve blog conferences for me on a personal level?
First of all, a quiet space. Somewhere to retreat to when it all gets a bit much. Preferably with comfy chairs. Would also be nice for those with babies. Also, some easy way to meet people – maybe we could do speed blog dating? Or have a guest blog carnival before hand when we introduce a friend? Once we’re there, how about self identified tags for foodies, or book bloggers, or politicos, or funny people (I could just wear them all. Except funny, I’m not really very funny). Also, there was a conference recently where people put different coloured clips on to indicate how much they wanted to talk – that sort of thing sounds like a great idea.
Because while I do love conferences, they are exhausting. In case you’re wondering how much, I wrote something over on choosing different about it all.
Back to add another thought. Earlier I read the seemingly obligatory post by a newer blogger about feeling shut out by clicky(sic) behaviour. I can’t remember where, sorry, so I can’t link. But here’s a thing. I’ve been going to these conferences for 4 years now. I’m about as established a blogger as you can get, and I rate quite highly on various charts (not that I’ve ever won an award, sniff) but I would quite possibly have looked like I was blanking people at various points during the day on Saturday. That would be because I was completely dazed and confused. Plus there are a *lot* of people I wanted to see, and I didn’t manage it, even though it appears I did see quite a few in passing. It’s entirely possible there were no cliques. Just people talking to friends, and other people being overwhelmed by the environment, and trying to squeeze every minute out of their day. Just saying.
Leave a Reply