Blogworld Expo 2009 Recap

This past weekend I made my yearly pilgrimage to Las Vegas to join thousands of other social souls in our crazy business to talk about all manner of geekery and I loved every second of it. Even the part where I was worried the room was going to start spinning. Thankfully, it just sort of wobbled a little.

If you haven’t heard of it, Blogworld and New Media Expo is in it’s 3rd year and is a conference for professionals and hobbyists of all skill levels. The topics covered include Business, Social Media, Technical Skills, Podcasting/Video, Blogging, Montetazation, SEO and the list goes on. While I find quite a few panels to attend and learn a great deal, my passion at these events is meeting people. It’s hard not to feed on the energy at a show like this. I rarely get to see anyone other than technical developers and at BWE I got to meet people in all areas of this crazy online business.

This year my boss Mark came along and I think he had a much fun as I did and it was a blast having him along. Mark is also a very social guy and will talk to just about anybody. As usual, I met up with my pals Brandon, Patrick and Stephan. It was great hanging out and catching up. I didn’t get to go to SXSW this past time and missed hanging out. I also got a chance to hang a bit with Jeremy Wright and Darren Rowse who I tend to bump into more often than not. Also ran into Wendy Piersall, who I think might remember my name now ;) To top things off, when I ran into Muhammad Saleem I also got to drool all over his stunning Saddleback bag. OMG! I can haz bag?

I also made some great new friends including: Courtenay Bird, Paul Stamatiou (Stammy), Kerwin, Lisa Grimm, Wayne Sutton, Ricardo Bueno (ribeezie), Claudio Saucedo, Eduardo Merille, Sarah Evans, Amber Naslund, Taryn Pisaneschi, Tony Saucier, Nathan T. Wright, Stephan Spencer, and Wade Kwon. I’m so sure I’m forgetting plenty of people, but my brain is still totally fried from information overload. If I forget to mention you, I still truly enjoyed meeting you!

Some of my favorite moments: Talking about just about everything with Mark, Brandon and Stephan at the Bellagio. Hanging with Darren, Mark and Brandon at Jet and Lavo. Hanging out at the Hilton after with Lisa (who posted this Twitpic of one of my tats), Nathan (The Lemurs!) and Tony. Hanging out with Mark, Courtenay, Stammy, Stephan and Kerwin at the BBQ.

I also got to do some video work. I took video for Patrick’s panel and stayed after to help Ribeezie shoot some video of Robert Scoble on the new Twitter Lists feature. Also videoed Patrick and Brandon’s book signing as well as Patrick’s Skimlinks Q&A. I’ll post links once these are all up. It was also great to hang with Wade Kwon finally, as he lives pretty close by and I love meeting other locals. Speaking of, I was very impressed with the huge, huge showing of southern developers at this event. The keynotes were pretty good this year, but the closing keynote was insane and out of control and I loved it.

There were plenty of familiar faces I saw but didn’t really get to talk to. Alas, ran out of time. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other at SXSW. I’m already excited. Blog World Expo 2009 was, for me at least, a complete success. Hope to see you there next year.