Somehow, I had never attended a Blog World until last week in Los Angeles. I came close a couple of times, but couldn’t make it work until this time.
Overall, it was a great event and I’m going to make every effort to attend the next one in June of 2012. Inevitably, Blog World draws a lot of comparisons to South By Southwest. While SXSW is easily 10 times bigger in scope, I found the networking at Blog World to be better, because most of the same people were there, but in a much smaller space. For example, I got to catch up with Chris Brogan and Scott Monty at Blog World, even though they had been at previous SXSWs, and I’d missed them. Other vets of both conferences told me the same thing, that you’ll meet more people and have better conversations at Blog World. They were right.
One thing that I really appreciated from Blog World was offering free shuttle service from all 4 partner hotels. This alone probably saved me $100 or more on cab fees. And on top of that, @YouCast offered one of the smartest sponsorships I’ve ever seen at a social media conference: They offered FREE shuttle rides from LAX to all 4 hotels, then return service from the hotels to LAX when attendees left. This saved me another $100, and guess what, You Cast is one of the few sponsors I remember from Blog World, and the only one I am blogging about. Bobby and the team did a great job with this.
The Sessions: Sometimes More is Less
If there was one area where I think Blog World fell short, it was the sessions. Not the quality, but there was simply too much to choose from. The sessions I did attend were all pretty good, in fact several of them were great. But attendance was low in almost all of them. When you walk into a room that seats 200, and 15 people are in the audience, you cannot help but form opinions about the topic and presenter even before the session starts. What made matters worse was that I began to notice that about 20 mins into every session, attendees started leaving. My guess is that they had at least 2 sessions they wanted to see at that time, and if the one they picked wasn’t amazing to them, they left to go to their backup choice.
Another problem with having so many sessions running at once is that you need a LOT of rooms to hold them all. That means that you literally need a tour guide to find some of the rooms. For example, the room where the Live #Blogchat was held was at the end of a LONG hallway and then wrapped around a corner. There were no signs and it was really isolated. We still had a great turnout, around 70 people, but I tweeted several times exactly where the room was. Another session I attended had 10 people, and as soon as I walked in, I could tell that the panelists looked totally dejected at the low turnout. I get what Rick and the Blog World team were trying to do, they were trying to make sure that they had all the blogging topics covered, as there were a ton of niche blogging areas/topics featured. But when there are only say 30 people interested in a particular niche at an event, and you give them 14 other session options in the same time slot as their niche, well you are going to have a low turnout.
The Parties Were a Very Pleasant Surprise
In keeping with the comparison to SXSW, I have to say that I absolutely HATE most of the parties at SXSW. Usually, these are held at a bar with loud music and a few hundred geeks standing inches from each other screaming as they try to have a conversation. It is painful to watch, and a miserable experience. But the parties at Blog World were far better. I missed the closing party, but attended the opening party and the one on Friday night. In both cases, there were a ton of nice comfy chairs and couches to sit at. There was loud music, but it wasn’t TOO loud. It added a nice sense of background, but you could still be standing next to a group and have a chat.
Overall, I think Blog World was a great event
No, it wasn’t perfect, but I think the experience as a whole was a good one. And even with the issues I did see, such as way too many sessions at the same time, I think Rick and his team had the best of intentions. If you want to spend a couple of days having amazing conversations and attending a few excellent sessions and parties, then Blog World is the place for you. And who doesn’t want that? 😉
If you attended Blog World, especially if it was your 1st one like it was mine, what did you think?
Great stuff Mack. I enjoyed chatting with you, as always. Can’t believe it was your first one!
I agree on the sessions. Rooms were way too big, and too many good sessions at the same time. Seems to me like they would be better off running each session twice, so if you can’t make the first one, you can catch it in the afternoon?
Jay,
Sorry, I would have liked to have met you, but alas…that didn’t happen. But your idea to run a session twice has real merit. The bottomline is no one wants to present to a small audience and most attendees feel awkward being part of a small audience in an oversized room.
Judy
Hey Jay! Yes the rooms were way too big, when I first arrived at the room for the Live #Blogchat I was a bit disappointed that it only sat 90, but by the time we got started the room was almost completely full except for one row. but yes, most of the rooms were SXSW size, with a fraction of the attendees. I talked to Marcus Sheridan and he made a great point about how a full room just energizes the speaker, which means s/he does a better job, and it’s a better session.
Given that this was the 1st time Blog World had been at the LACC, I think it was a good event, overall. Glad we had a few seconds to catch up, hope we can do it again at SXSW, if not sooner!
Agreed fellows. This is the one thing I’d strongly suggest they change about the event. It’s very, very tough on a speaker (as you well know Jay) to speak in a room that holds 600 people yet there are only 200 in the audience. I think instead of 19-20 tracts going on at once, it would likely be better if there were about half that.
I’d be curious to here what Rick, Dave, and Deb think about this subject.
Marcus
Hi Mack –
I agree with you about the sessions. Building on what Jay wrote, I would rather see stronger filters on who presents (there were some clunkers this year), fewer sessions offered and repeats of the popular presenters.
Hope we get to meet at BWE one day, I have followed you and read your blog for several years!
Indra
Thank you Indra, I would love to meet you as well! Weren’t there like 300 speakers? Speaking is an art, and it takes YEARS to develop. Seriously, there are some very good speakers at events like BWE and SXSW, but when you see a real pro like Sally Hogshead or John Moore present, you realize how the quality of speakers at these events is lacking in many cases. This is at most events across the board, not just BWE. I do think the quality of the ‘top’ speakers on the social media/blogging circuit is improving simply because we all have more experience, though.
Hey Mack, like everyone else, I agree, you are spot on with all of this. And yes, YouCast was awesome!
This was my exact thoughts as well regarding the sessions, so I don’t need to repeat what you said : ) I even talked to someone who said their friend didn’t have anyone show up to hers.
But overall is was great, and made some awesome connections. And loved the chance to finally meet you in person!
Hey Bob glad we got a chance to chat for a bit on the shuttle and at the bar! Hope we can do it again soon!
Hi Mack,
This was my 3rd Blog World Expo. I wrote my review, but I wanted to tell you that I agree with your point about the number of sessions running at concurrently. I know that BWE wants to offer a good cross section of blogging and social media sessions, but it is almost overwelming to have to choose. I am not so sure that some opted not to choose and just continued to network in the common areas and exhibit hall. I was there for two days and only attended five sessions and four keynotes.
Transportation during the day was fantastic. A real help, and I am sure the transport to LAX was a big help. I am not sure that everyone knew how to get the transport to and from LAX. My only suggestion for the transportation would have been to have it available to attend the parties.
I didn’t attend any of the parties. I did so in previous years and found myself lost in a sea of people that were so engaged with each other…they didn’t make eye contact, also loud music and no where to sit. This year I wanted to go, but felt a little uneasy taking a cab by myself in downtown LA. I know I should have reached out to someone to go with, but a shuttle would have solved that issue.
Ok, enough said. I have never been to SXSW. I just loved meeting you and attending live #blogchat.
Judy
Judy I am glad we got to meet finally! That is a GREAT point about no shuttles to parties, I meant to mention this in my post. I remember Thursday night when we were all at the Sheraton bar planning the trip to the Opening Party, we were all trying to figure out how to find the shuttle. After an hour, we all realized there WAS no shuttle! It was a bit of a disconnect to have the YouCast shuttle from LAX, then the Blog World shuttles during the day, then none for the parties? A missed opportunity by the sponsors, but luckily they were close by and cab fares were cheap.
And thanks for attending the Live #blogchat, I appreciated you being there!
Great recap mack. I was sorry not to get a chance to speak with you but i was working the event and helping out. Perhaps in June we can sit down and talk about the coolness.
Sounds like a plan, Jim!