Living life with vision
Quick note of thanks to those who have already sent email birthday wishes and notes on my Facebook page. Today I’ve been fairly lazy… I ate cookies left over from last night for breakfast and lunch, watched the first two episodes of Torchwood from the first season DVD Troy gave me.
Speaking of cookies…
I’m finally getting back to wrapping up about Blog World. I went back to the spiral notebook where I took notes and at the sight of those scribbles I started wondering if they were slipping something wacky into those Jones Sodas. When I get a laptop with more than 3 hours battery time I’m going completely digital.
I met up with Becky McCray and Zane Safrit before Becky took the stage for the panel on business planning. I first met Becky a couple of years ago at the National Conference for Business & Professional Women. She even interviewed me from by booth at the tradeshow. Her blog is called Small Biz Survival and it’s just as the tagline says, a great small town small business resource.
Zane was working the booth for the International Blogging & New Media Association. Now I can be counted a member, as I just signed up today! You can find Zane over at his blog where he writes about business, the economy and lots of other interesting stuff.
Even at a business conference unrelated to non profit sector, I’ll find people who are involved with causes on a variety of levels. Several people that I met are directly involved with foundations or companies that serve charitable causes.
I met Tom Betts at the opening keynote who works for The Common, a site that connects people with needs with people who have particular talents. On first glance it impressed me as a somewhat different take on Volunteer Match or Idealist which have similar services.
At one of the sessions I talked with Whitney of Music for Relief, which was founded by the band Linkin Park in response to the 2005 South Asia tsunami. Band member Mike Shinoda gave us a lot of insights about how/why he blogs as part of the Sunday keynote panel.
From rappers to ‘godbloggers’ this conference was nothing if not diverse. Marcus Goodyear was there as part of the GodBlogCon. He’s senior Editor of High Calling Blogs, “a network of personal websites focused specifically on the intersection of faith and work.” It’s sponsored by the H.E. Butt Foundation (related to the HEB Grocery Stores). There were also seminars for people interested in blogging about the military, sports and real estate. There may have been a political one too. As I said, diverse! Actually I believe this to be one of Blog World’s strengths. I imagine next year they will have seminars for other industries or areas of focus. Perhaps Cause Blogging? 
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”
~ Alexander Graham Bell
Thanks to Jay Stockwell for including this quote in today’s Associate Programs newsletter. Photo credit: Dave Gough
The theme for the Photohunt given on Saturday, September 27th was “view.” So today I’m posting a view out the window of our 6th floor office space. We just moved in about a month ago. Here’s the little city park that’s across the street from us:
Then I actually went to the park to get a ground level close up of the horse sculptures. These are part of a city wide project sponsored by Leadership Wichita Falls.
Here’s the other side of the pony. This painting shows many of the recognizable buildings in our downtown area, including the big blue “skyscraper” near the top center. That’s our building.
I wrote about my first impressions of Blog World while still at the event It’s been non-stop busy since then, so I’m working on catching up with work, blogging and my sleep.
One session that was standing room only was called “Creating Customer Loyalty” and featured one of my favorite business leaders, Tony Hsieh (pronounced “Shay”) CEO of Zappos.com. The panelists talked about how companies are using online tools such as blogs and twitter to interact with customers. Here are some of the notable quotes from that seminar:
“Being involved in the internet is the only way to retain customers.” ~ Frank Eliason, Comcast
[The internet and social media] “are changing expectations, changing the whole service model.” ~ Brian Solis
“Some companies say they care, we really do.” ~ Tony Hsieh, Zappos
There were many other good points to this seminar… though I was using the old fashioned paper and pen to take notes as my laptop had died by the last session of the day.
Southwest Airlines, who had a big booth at the conference, has been well known for years for its focus on the customer experience. I’ve only flown Southwest a couple of times but now that we’re as close to Oklahoma City as DFW, I’ll have to try to book with them in the future. At least they won’t charge me $15 per bag like American.
Anyway, on Sunday afternoon they showed some videos that their “blog-o-spondents” created over the weekend. I just saw Abigail’s video (which was great) before I realized that I was missing the free snacks in the back of the hall. They had scheduled sessions from 11-12 and 12:15-1:15 so by the time you got out it was starvation mode. Unlike PubCon, which Tracie and I went to last year, Blog World did not include lunches with your conference registration. On Saturday there was nothing at all, except overpriced pizza at the deli which I declined. At least on Sunday there was lots of free Jones Soda to go with the chips ‘n dip. I also met some neat people hanging out waiting for the next sessions to start. So overall it was a great afternoon.
