Blissdom Day Two: Sessions, Food and Fun

I skipped the 7  a.m. fitness session this morning  after the late night Blissdom Kickoff events.  Breakfast started an hour later so that was the first scheduled activity for me.

Let me tell you that there is no way anyone could go hungry at Blissdom.  Not only was there food for breakfast, lunch, breaks and evening events but many of the exhibitors had food samples.

Blissdom Thursday Morning Session

The opening keynote by Brene Brown was inspirational and now I have to read her book!  She talked about  the importance of vulnerability to being able to live and love with whole hearts.  She is a proponent of owning your own space online.

I wrote down these takeaway points about free range social media which I think are great “rules” for any blog:

• No cages
• No copying
• No cruelty

Jennifer James from Mom Bloggers Club did an interesting presentation on an experiment she had starting an anonymous blog.  She found it is possible to quickly become known in a niche and had some pointers for all.

• Have a good design to attract new readers
• Buy your own domain name
• Any blogger can be a great blogger
• Be confident
• Don’t be afraid to talk to companies (I would add advertisers)

In between speakers I introduced myself to J. Money from Budgets are Sexy and our virtual friendship became an in person one.   He’s just as great a guy in person as comes across in print and really does rock a mohawk.

The last morning session was a round table meet and greet with others in the same niche (plus there was a no-niche table or two).  There wasn’t a personal finance niche so I joined the frugal tables and met old and new friends.

Blissdom Thursday Afternoon Session

There was a two hour break for Mexican food buffet lunch and time to visit exhibits.  After eating I did just that including the suites.  At the Gain suite, I had a wonderful chair massage.  I moved next door to the GE suite fora manicure and to learn about their new washer and dryer.

This meant I missed the start of the first breakout session.  There were three tracks: Writing, Professional and Brand Partnerships.  By the time I got there for the Viral Marketing and Twitter session, I couldn’t get in the door.  Literally, people were sitting on the floor in front of the door.

So I visited more exhibits until the next breakout which was titled “Ignorance is Not Bliss: Decoding Legal and Tax Implications of Your Success”.  This session presented by Charlene Oliver from Charlene Chronicles, Sarah Visbeek from In the Trenches of Mommyhood and fellow Inexpensively team member, Sara Hawkins from Saving For Someday.  They are two lawyers and a paralegal so they knew their stuff.

They started off with a blogger’s rendition of the YMCA and it got better from there.  Here are some of the highlights I wrote down:

• Make sure you’re properly insured (mental note to talk to my agent)
• Document all swag received (trips, gifts, gift cards, etc) and discuss with tax preparer
• Track all expenses
• Liability related to guest post content, images and even hateful comments left by others
• What to do about site scrapers

This session was fantastic and worth the conference price alone.

Blissdom Thursday Night Life

The evening event started off with a red carpet experience (including photo-op) and then a buffet of southern-flavored food at Findley’s Pub.  This part of the evening was sponsored by Tide Stain Release so there was plenty of red wine to be had (and an non-alcoholic drink I never checked out).

After an hour or so here, we headed next door to the nightclub Fuse where there were performances by Michelle Branch and Mat Kearney later in the evening.  I forgot to mention that all attendees were given two drink coupons at the start of each night’s events so no one went thirsty!

The first performance was by Michelle Branch.  I haven’t really listened to her music before, but really liked it.

The second performance was Mat Kearney who also did a great job.  I didn’t stay until the end of his set as it had been a long day already.  I’m told there was a lot of dancing going on later!

Tagged as: Blissdom, Conference