Note: My editing skills and tech are not up to the point of bleeping out swearing, which this video contains. I find it a better general policy overall to allow, rather than to censor or restrict.
How many blogging conferences do you know of where there’s a river boat cruise? I bet not too many!
The cruise took place last Friday. I met a lot of great new people, exchanged a lot of business cards, and I am always awed by the sights of Chicago every time I visit. One of SOBCon’s sponsors, Jim Beam, provided the open bar. Let me tell ya, bloggers on a boat + free-flowing alcohol = good times (some people are probably grateful that I did not put it online).
Opening entertainment was provided by Christine Kane, a wonderful singer/songwriter who blogs. Representatives from Jim Beam talked about how they were beginning to embrace new media communications for their brand (and they probably learned so much by participating in the conference that they got their sponsorship money paid back several times over in precious advice and information).
There was an open mic (the live version of what Liz Strauss does on her blog every Tuesday night) night, where the topic was about your first blog post ever. I kinda missed that because I was up on the deck of the boat taking pictures of Chicago’s stunning skyline from out in Lake Michigan. I was joined by the more serious photography buffs (I am no such thing) like Wendy Piersall and Chris Garrett.
One interesting note about this conference and why I’ve chosen to write about it on Remarkablogger. Would you think of going to a conference on television advertising if you were not in that industry? Probably not. How about a conference on print or radio advertising? I hear crickets chirping in the silence. Blogging is one of those weird things where it makes perfect sense to attend a blogging conference. I think it’s because it’s such a personal, human-powered (not in spite of the technology involved, but because of it) communications endeavor. It’s been said (I don’t know by whom) that SOBCon is an “Internet marketing MBA in 48 hours.”
If anyone else who attended SOBCon wants to, please add your thoughts about the boat cruise or about the worth of attending a blogging conference even if you’re not a “pro blogger.”
