On Saturday I zipped up my Longchamp bag filled with business cards, my canon(that did not get used once) my ipad, a notepad and pens and headed to Bloggy Boot Camp. The really tough 10 minute drive from my house was worth it 🙂
I saw some truly AMAZING speakers such as
Laurie Turk of Tip Junkie
Elizabeth Liu of Flourish in Progress
Angela England
Holly Homer
Cynthia Wheeler
Allison Talamantez
Tiffany and Francesca of SITS Girls who are so crazy awesome cool that my words wouldn’t do them justice. Seriously feel blessed to have gotten to chat with both of them.
I also got to meet some fun new friends like Bri and Jen 🙂
It was a day filled with information, great thoughts, and had my mind racing of things I wanted to accomplish both for myself and for this blog.
I have made a lot of big decisions on some changes for the blog, the way I do things and my goals moving forward.
The main one is that my blog will be switching to WordPress. This will be happening in the next week or so and I am not sure if you will have to resubscribe or what but be on the lookout for an announcement. This is something I have been wrestling with for a long time. It wasn’t just Bloggy Boot Camp that made me decide it but it did give me the push I needed.
I also downloaded a few ebooks that were recommended and spent most of yesterday doing research on a few other major things happening to this blog.
If you have a chance to attend a Bloggy Boot Camp I highly suggest it. I’ve been blogging for nearly 3 years and it was very helpful to me. I’m excited to attend the Chicago Branding Bloggy Boot Camp in November. I cant wait to see what great stuff I learn there!
Blog Conferences are VERY important to me. Its such a wonderful feeling to be around other women who “get you.” They get what you’re about, they support you, lift you up and inspire you. There is so much negativity in the world from the internet, or the news, or our daily lives and even sadly from ourselves, being around other people that have the same passions, goals and dreams is so comforting.
I really feel as though it was a great $99 spent.
I would for sure go back again next year and hopefully there will be some city options which I have not visited yet 🙂
My favorite quotes from the day:
“The Loudest Voice is not always right”
“Don’t Compare your insides to someone else’s outsides”
“Dont try to win over the haters, you aren’t the jackass whisperer”
“Be OK saying no”
“I dont know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everyone”
Blog Conferences are VERY important to me. Its such a wonderful feeling to be around other women who “get you.” They get what you’re about, they support you, lift you up and inspire you. There is so much negativity in the world from the internet, or the news, or our daily lives and even sadly from ourselves, being around other people that have the same passions, goals and dreams is so comforting.
I really feel as though it was a great $99 spent.
I would for sure go back again next year and hopefully there will be some city options which I have not visited yet 🙂
My favorite quotes from the day:
“The Loudest Voice is not always right”
“Don’t Compare your insides to someone else’s outsides”
“Dont try to win over the haters, you aren’t the jackass whisperer”
“Be OK saying no”
“I dont know the key to success but the key to failure is trying to please everyone”
I hope you all feel as inspired as I do.
Have you ever been to a blog conference? If not what is one you would want to attend?
Happy Monday.
The Current Finishing Touch Sponsor:
I have never been to a blog conference (i didnt even know they existed!) Any advice on where i could find a good one local to me? Or where to look?
Tara
http://tarabelle-adropofink.blogspot.com/
YES! google blog conferences( a lot change cities year to year) there are just so many!
I would love to go to a conference but I do not see that happening anytime soon though. I am glad you had such a wonderful time. 🙂 I love the quotes and they are all so true. Have a good day.
i still need to get to a conference and def debating to get to the chicago one in november since its so close! eeks! im glad you had a great time though girl : )xo
I’m so intrigued about WordPress, I hear so many bloggers who have either already switched or are going to switch and how much they love it. Can’t wait to hear more! 🙂
Ditto, what are your reasons?! Everybody seems to be doing it, but I haven’t had any big issues with Blogger so I seem to be missing the advantages! Tell us! 😉
Its not a matter of issues with blogger or anything. I want to be able to build traffic using SEO and thats something I can do on wordpress. I also prefer the look and feel of wordpress.
Hi! Unfortunately I don’t think there is any conference near my city – have to look up near where I live, but I never heard of any. Why WordPress? I read so many bloggers switch? Whats the big difference?
cheers
Nina
I haven’t been to a conference yet. I’m not really sure how serious I will get into this blogging thing, but it is so fun hearing how inspired you are from them!! Don’t you just love that feeling…the excitement!! Awesome!
Great blog!!!
M
I keep hearing people talk about switching from Blogger to WordPress and I am intrigued. I’m a new blogger, so I have yet to run into any issues with Blogger. Can you enlighten us? 🙂 Thanks, Neely!
Love that “haters” quote! I’m curious…. why is WordPress more “legit” when you have your own dot com? Does it look more “amateur” to have a blogger hosted blog? I just always think if really successful blogs who are blogger hosted are thought of as big time blogs, why switch? I just haven’t really researched it enough to make a decision.
What ebooks did you get?
I’d love to hear more on switching from Blogger to WordPress… especially if you have your own dot com. Maybe I need to attend a boot camp, or 5. 😉
I need to know: why is everyone wanting to switch to wordpress?
I know personally, I always forget to read blogs from wordpress and I hate trying to comment on them.
My wedding website/blog is on WordPress and my personal blog is on blogger. I think they are both great platforms for blogging, but I will be switching my personal blog to WordPress after the wedding. I think WordPress gives you more freedom to customize and really develop your website around your blog. Glad you had a great experience! Good luck with the switch 🙂
Wish I had gone this weekend. Please share more insights!
I’ve never been to a blog conference! Sounds like so much fun though 🙂
The jackass whisperer hahahahahaa I love it!
That’s great that you had a good time and learned so much (and got to see and meet new people)!
Happy Monday you sexy thang! I’m so excited you got to attend this conference–part of me is really jealous because blogger conferences generally don’t come to my area. BUT I WANT TO CHANGE THIS. Perhaps one day when I take over the world 😉 Also, can’t wait to see your new design on wordpress!
Glad that you got so much out of the bootcamp ! And wordpress is great, I can’t compare it to Blogger as I haven’t tried it, but I love WordPress. And I’ve never been to a blogging conference, but I’m definitely going to start looking into them.
I love the jackass whisperer one 🙂
i am going to the one in vegas and i am so excited
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I plan on making the wordpress jump in a few weeks. It’s something I have known I need to do, and Totty finally talked me into it.
my hubs uses word press and tries to get me to post there too…i just don’t have the time to sit and devote to getting it down…not only that…how does one transfer their blog posts there?
The only blogging conference that I’ve been to so far is BlogHer, which was okay, but I think I’d rather go to something smaller in the future.
Also, I wanted to pass on a tutorial that I ran across awhile ago to you, apparently there’s a work around so you can keep your GFC followers when you move to WordPress, I might be helpful… http://girldoesgeek.com/2012/04/gfc-wordpress-blog.html
Can you share what the books are that were recommended? 🙂 thanks girl!
I thought about moving to WordPress a few times, never did it though. Still think about it.
I would be interested in those books to read if you don’t mind sharing
Diddo on learning what books you can recommend!
Oh this makes me really want to go to the Chicago one… where do I get more info?
Good morning beautiful! Just stopping by to say hi and how glad I was to get to meet you and have a chance to talk! So sad I didn’t end up going to dinner – I definitely should have!
I’m curious to hear more about your switch to WP and why. I’ve kicked it around, but I honestly just can’t come up with a good reason. I also don’t really need much in the way of customization, though, so that may be a big part of it – but maybe I could be swayed 😉
Also? I just read your “about me”, and I’m basically convinced we’re the same person. Hence why I got lost in Dallas looking for a Starbucks and why I have a paper planner in my handbag!
I would love to attend the bloggy boot camp. I hope they come back to Atlanta again!! I love WordPress 🙂
Hailey
http://Www.lovelaughterandlipstick.com
Sounds fabulous!