I attended what’s billed as the ultimate blogging conference of the year in Las Vegas last weekend – BlogWorld Expo 2009. I was there to speak on a travel panel about how companies like and choose to work with bloggers. This was the first ever track of travel sessions held at this conference.
I was very fortunate to have fellow panelists at our session who really knew their stuff. Mike Taylor from Fairmont Hotels and Tom Martin, blogger with Helpmybrand.com were not only super nice guys but great with their information and knowledge that the audience appreciated. Another great connection was Doug Anweiler from Authentic Seacoast who moderated our session.
This was probably my quickest ever trip to Vegas. I arrived on Friday around noon and left Saturday night on the red-eye. I took an hour Friday afternoon to walk down “the strip”. No offense to anyone out there and again, this is just my opinion, but I’m fairly sure that Vegas ain’t my kinda town. I don’t gamble, don’t smoke, not into sequinned clothes and can’t afford the shows. But the town was certainly hopping!
While I was in Vegas I had the pleasure of running into two of the more prominent social media gurus, Steve Rubel and Guy Kawasaki. Not only did I run into them, but I was extremely fortunate enough to sit down to breakfast with them for nearly 2 hours. What a morning that was! Their knowledge and insights were fascinating. They talked Twitter, LifeStream, and a lot of conversation around the best iPhone apps.
If I had been smart I would have grabbed my notebook and written down everything they said. The funniest moment was when Steve dragged out his tool box for all his electronic gear he travels with – which he’s downsized to pretty much just the iPhone lately. The coolest item was a battery charger he picked up at Walmart for about $30 that will charge your phone when you’re not near an outlet. That’s pretty cool.
It was a great morning to be able to spend such quality time with them. If you want to learn more about them just click on their names above and I”ve linked to their websites. You should also follow them on Twitter.
