• Home
• About CanCan
• Contact
• PR Submissions

Post Blogher ‘09 Post

I finally made it home!

The $5 voucher that NWA gave me to cover breakfast only bought one Venti iced latte in the airport Starbucks. But it was enough to get me home. And make me uncomfortable on the flight because there was NO BATHROOM ON THE WHOLE PLANE.

I know. Just hearing that announcement before we boarded made me have to pee.

Anyway, how do I process the whole BlogHer ‘09 experience? It was louder, faster, busier than I expected. I had a lot of fun and was really stretched physically just to keep up.

On Thursday night I got to the hotel later than I expected. I had just enough time to rush and change clothes and sprint down to the volunteer meeting for those of us earning our keep at BlogHer.

I got finished with that at 5:30 and went upstairs to the Mom Central/ Johnson & Johnson cocktail party, hoping I would see someone I knew. The party was apparently not in full swing; I didn’t see anyone official nor anyone I recognized. It was actually quite awkward so I didn’t even use my drink voucher. I figured out how to call Naomi on my mom’s cell phone (which I borrowed for BlogHer, because I actually do not have my own!).

She and Kathleen were in their room so I went up and met them! Wooo! Kathleen and her crafty self gave me a delicious gift of hand knit slipper socks/booties! I was so thrilled! Yes I did sleep in them.

Those two had already visited the SocialLuxe Lounge and I was anxious to go. Their swag was awesome. I walked to the party which was across the street/under a bridge/ up some stairs/ and into another hotel, all in the rain and wearing heels.

This served to put me in the perfect party mood.

So I get there and they are OUT of swag and no one talks to me. Even the girl at the desk who I am trying to subliminate eye contact with so I can ask her about the status of the swag.

I check out the exhibitors, have small talk with the girl from Lego, and eat one bread stick. Then I walk back over to the official BlogHer hotel. It isn’t raining as much now but I am still wearing heels and it feels awesome (I should wear heels every day to boost my happiness level).

So I’m schwagless except for a Lego keychain (thanks!), and I’m kind of rained on and my feet hurt. I went back up to the room met my roomates, Shannon and Leigh. Rach, the 4rth roomie, hasn’t arrived yet.

I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of boxes and boxes of promotional items I am planning to hand out in the Mom Most Traveled schwag bag. After some phone calls a bell boy arrives with a bagillion boxes for me containing: 300 bags of chips, 125 Palmer’s lip balms, 125 custom fortune cookies, 60 organic dresses, 125 packets of labels, and some Baby Bjorn flyers. These will all (except the dresses) go in my cute orange MMT swag bag to share the love of free stuff with my fellow attendees.

Shannon and Leigh graciously help me stuff swag bags (I could NOT have done without their help) and Shannon adds some Community Coffee to the free love.

I take a huge wad of bags down to the lobby as I am about to meet some ladies for the Team Mom Dinner, and I have NO trouble finding people who want free stuff!

At the Team Mom dinner I met tons of bloggers I “knew” online, like Rockin’ Mama, one half of the amazing Mamanista, Mom of 3 Girls, Riding With No Hands, and more!

We ate a multi-course meal, then waddled back over to the hotel. I missed out on the People’s Party and the Room 704 party was winding down after what I heard was a frightening, athletic swag-grab!

LESSONS LEARNED ON THURSDAY AT BLOGHER:

• it pays to use your photo on your blog/avatar. People can actually recognize you and know who you are.
• parties run out of swag pretty early. And some people actually steal swag! Shame shame!

Friday

I went to breakfast and sat with some travel bloggers. Going to breakfast gave me a chance to get the official BlogHer conference swag which contained a Mr. Potato Head doll, a LeapFrog TAG book, a cool reusable bag, a conference pin, and other this and that I am forgetting. About 2 hours after opening registration, they ran out of the conference bags!

How this happened, I don’t know if they ever figured it out. Bags were put together for all attendees. So either some got stolen, or some didn’t make it to the site. Sad.

At breakfast I also met Kim from What’s That Smell, PlusSizeMommy, CraftyMamaof4, 3P’s Mama, and Jerri Ann. I handed out some more of my MMT swag bags and gave out Go Natural Baby Zah organic dresses to people with daughters sized 4T or smaller.

I went to the opening speech/intro to BlogHer and did the “speed dating” exercise. I probably introduced myself to 10 or 15 people and collected a wad of business cards (and one cookie!).

When that was over I decided to go down to the Expo hall and see what was going on. I found myself near the Playskool booth around the time I was supposed to be coming to interview Sharon John, general manager of Playskool, and Jodie Neville, senior marketing manager.

They were SO fun to talk to, I got our interactions on video and I thought they were a great interview. I hope I can edit that to make it concise and get it posted soon (I’m having trouble w/ the editing on my new camera).

After we talked and laughed for a pretty good while I went to lunch. Kathleen and I sat together with some, um, “nature bloggers” (it was the most empty table so we sat down) and chatted with one of the BlogHer International Activist Scholarship Winners, from Nigeria. That was cool. I always feel so connected with internationals since I have been a foreigner myself (as an American in Asia) for 8 years of my life.

After lunch it was time for my volunteer shift at the information desk, but I was actually relieved of my duties after 2 hours instead of 4. I went back down to the expo hall and talked to the ladies representing Acuvue, to thank them for my scholarship that I won from a contest they did on the BlogHer website.

Went to the Friday night closing keynote and laughed and cried as other bloggers read their best posts.

Around 6 I went to the EnergizeHER party, which I had really looked forward to but when I went it was SUPER crowded and the swag bags were gone (AGAIN!). I didn’t have time to get on the waiting list for manicures and pedicures because I had to get ready to catch a LIMO (wooo!) to the Nikon Party (wooo!).

Here is a picture Organizer Sandy snapped of me enjoying a massage at the Nikon Party.

Lessons Learned on Friday at BlogHer:

• sometimes it pays to sit with people you don’t know during meal time. You could meet someone incredible.
• a funny blog post seems to open up the well of emotions, so it isn’t surprising that laughing and crying can happen in quick succession.
• after worrying about buying special clothes for the parties, I got tons of compliments on the hand-me-down dress I wore. It was given to me in a bag of old clothes that my friend was getting rid of.
• I have really bad luck getting swag.
• Invite-only parties should be kept small to be done well. I thought Nikon did an wonderful job.

Saturday

Breakfast was a little later today to allow some sleepage. Had some good oatmeal then after the keynote, went to the Identity/Passions: TravelBloggers as Boundary-Breaking Evangelists session. I had to leave early, I don’t remember why. Maybe I wanted to do something before lunch.

I ate with Kathleen again, this time at an “activist bloggers” table that included Jeremiah from Zrecs (I missed Jennifer, Mrs. Zrecs), and the woman who is the genius behind DonorsChoose.

I had to excuse myself for my volunteer shift, which was from 1 to 4 and involved rounding up derelict swag that wasn’t from official BlogHer sponsors and carrying it to the “recycle” table in the Expo hall.

In the evening I convinced Naomi and Kathleen to go with me to the Shutter Sister’s Suite for the PJ party before we went to BowlHer. The reluctantly agreed but when we got there (on time) they were still setting up so it was all embarrassing and awkward (plus they asked us to leave, doh!).

SO, on to BowlHer, where we didn’t bowl but we DID work the red carpet. Oh yes. We WERKED IT!

Just so you know, we were instructed to “do something crazy”, which I interpreted as “look insane”.

And I saw a lot of puckered lips going on so I decided to take it in a different direction.

Saturday lessons learned:

• it is not cool to randomly dump promotional materials on a table at BlogHer if you are not an official sponsor. Some folks paid big money for that right. You can hand out stuff to INDIVIDUALS but you can’t act as an exhibitor.
• pink boas are scratchy
• not so sure I belong on a red carpet

Overall:

• A busy busy busy couple of days. Not nearly enough time to talk and bond and listen.
• Handing out schwag got to be a bit of a burden. I will definitely tone it down next time.
• An umbrella would be a good promotional gift.
• I was surprised that some people were rude, but thankfully way more people were friendly.
• People steal schwag. I don’t know why.
• There is a lot to do at BlogHer. Sadly you can’t do it all so don’t try to!
• Not everyone stressed about their wardrobe. Many many people just wore what they had, and that is perfectly fine/acceptable/normal/awesome.
• I handed out a TON of business cards, and collected just as many.
• I found myself wishing for something more portable to stay connected with. Lots of people had iphones, blackberries, and those cute little mini laptops.

BlogHer ‘10 will be in New Yor City, August 6-7. Will you be there?

Submit Article: Digg | Google Bookmarks | Add to Technorati Favorites | kirtsy | Stumble It! | Del.icio.us

Comments