What sort of person goes to a blogging conference, gives a talk there then doesn’t talk about it for a month? This girl *wiggles thumbs*
I have a post half written about something I discussed at lunch at Blognix, but for some reason, I kept pushing back this post of what actually happened. I’m such an amazing blogger, really.
So earlier this year, Elizabeth got in touch with me and asked if I would be interested in speaking at her event, Blognix. I was excited to accept – not just because it was one of my goals for the year to talk at something but because I had missed out on going last year and was at the time looking at the logistics of going.
We decided that I would talk about ethics and disclosure in blogging – I’m sure I don’t need to tell most of you reading that it’s a topic I’m pretty passionate about! Having not spoken in front of an audience before (besides the blogger Christmas party, briefly), I was pretty nervous, but by Saturday morning, everything was written, I had multiple copies just in case (iPad, iPhone and printed copies of what I intended to say) and I had even planned enough time to go to Harts (if you ever find yourself travelling from Temple Meads, that’s my top tip. Arrive half an hour earlier than your train, and go down to Harts to get a pastry and a brew. No more expensive than going to Starbucks inside the station, but a million times more delicious)
The Custard Factory is a easy walk from the Bullring, but the works being done at Birmingham New Street mean it’s a bit confusing getting to the Bullring (“It’s the thing that looks like a giant toilet roll holder”, according to one worker at the train station) so I was a little flustered by the time I got there. Thankfully, I recognised some faces when I got into the event space, so after a quick runthrough of the plan for the day, we began!
The first talk was by Elizabeth about branding which gave me a few things to think about. When creating Bonjour, Blogger!, I knew that I wanted there to be a specific look (colours and fonts), but hadn’t really considered things like language. (I think I achieve a fairly informal plural chatty tone on the account, but it’s difficult sometimes!)
Next up was Emma talking about freelancing. While I enjoy my 9-5 job in accounts, I am always itching to do something different as well – that’s another reason why I started Bonjour, Blogger!, so I could get the writing side of me out a bit more. Emma taught us all a new word to describe this – multipotentialite. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to be describe this way! Her talk did get me to sign up for the 30 day freelance
There was a little break then it was my talk. I’ll be honest – I remember very little of this part of the day, but I don’t think I did tooooo badly – at least, everyone was too kind to tell me! Look! People took photos and videos of my face! Proof that I did do something! If you’d like to read what I said, I posted it on Bonjour, Blogger!
The final talk of the morning was Ahmed who runs a food site in Birmingham and who held a huge event. This was another talk that I was quite excited about – I love running our little #blogclub events in Bristol, but I’d really like to do something a little bigger, and wanted to know more about getting sponsors, etc.
Lunch was pretty epic – a huge buffet from The Old Crown and I was able to chat to lots of people (usually with a mouthful of food, sorry!)
The afternoon was taken up with different workshops – I sat out of the first two sessions as I was feeling a little people’d out (there’s a cute little cafe around the corner from where Blognix was, a brew always helps!) I made it to Kim‘s workshop on monetisation beyond your typical advertising.
The final talk was by Justice Williams – although she isn’t (yet!) a blogger, her talk was inspiring to hear how someone has built up a bit of a media empire.
It was all over far too quickly, and I was back on the train to Bristol (with some gininatin, obviously) – it was such an amazing day, and I am honoured (and to be honest, still a little surprised to be asked!) to have been a tiny part of it. Elizabeth and I have quite similar thoughts about blogging, so I’m looking forward to see what she comes up with next!