Portlander? Going to BlogWorld? Let Us Know!

I know of a couple other people from the Portland area that are heading down to Las Vegas for Blog World Expo next month. It promises to be a great weekend of all things bloggy (read more on a previous post). I thought it might be interesting to try to gather information on those from the area who were going, find out if we’re on any of the same flights, and so on.

If you’re from the Portland area and heading to BlogWorld, leave a comment below.

Observation on Portland’s Social Media Groups

Guess this Means We're Regulars

Observation: there’s the Beer and Blog crowd, and there’s the Social Media Club crowd. And there’s very little overlap between those crowds.

Good? Bad? Doesn’t Matter? Discuss.

Thoughts on Running a WordCamp: Balancing Expenses

I suspect I’ll post more thoughts on running a WordCamp in the weeks to come, but I recently ran into an interesting situation that’s one of those little things that doesn’t come up in the obvious list of things to do or considerations for these types of events. How does one prioritize the expenses and weigh that vs. the (limited) amount of sponsor dollars?

Some of the event costs are fixed and mandatory (facility) or directly related to the number of participants (T-shirts), but others are variable and need to be prioritized. When it comes to food, there are a lot of options from cheap to fancy, with all sorts of options in between. I want to provide a nice meal experience for the participants, along with a reasonable supply of beverages. Other expenses are entirely in the “optional” category but are nice to have. There is a strong desire in the community (both locally and worldwide) to have sessions recorded or even better, streamed live.

The community would benefit from the streaming, but one could make a darned good argument that the first priority should be to the participants who are paying to attend the event in person. Last night I sat at my desk considering whether we’d be able to afford streaming, or whether to provide better quality food for the participants. There’s no one “right” answer. I think we have things arranged for this year’s event, but this is but one of many such choices to be made.

Ah, to have one of those trees that grows money for WordCamps…

Join Me at Blog World Expo

I’m going to Blog World Expo in October, and if you’re serious about promoting, monetizing, and growing your blog, you should be joining me. I’m looking forward to networking with bloggers from around the world, while attending some great sessions and meeting a bunch of really smart people. There are tracks and sessions around monetization, content creation, video, audio, and a bunch of sessions surrounding community, social media, and social networking. Plus, last week we learned there will be a full WordCamp: Las Vegas happening on the expo floor.

I hope to see you there… hit this banner to register, and you can also use discount code BWESEP20 to save an additional 20%:

Join the top bloggers and new media experts in the world at BlogWorld Expo 2009

I’ll be heading down on Thursday afternoon, kicking things off on Thursday night, doing the conference on Friday and Saturday, and then using Sunday to relax a bit, follow up with people I met, and take some photos. That banner is an affiliate link, but I wouldn’t be promoting it if I didn’t think it sounds great.

Speaking of photos, here’s Las Vegas at Night as photographed in January: