Don't Try This at Home » BlogHer 07

BlogHer07: Embarrassing Moment #2

chilihead — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:00:00 +0000

You should never judge a book by its cover. Try to make friends whenever you can. Never assume the worst. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

I should have listened to that last bit of advice. Thumper’s mom knew what she was talking about.

As I was standing in a group of people with Shannon discussing the finer points of something or other, I noticed a woman sitting nearby but alone. Everyone around her was in conversation and she seemed to be a bit lost or bored or both. Occasionally she would appear to be looking in her purse for something then she would return to her pose a la The Thinker.

Since Extroverted Chili was making an appearance (part of the effort to bounce back after meeting Oh, the Joys), I decided to approach her and make conversation. You know, my good deed for the day and whatnot.

"Hi! My name is Chilihead. Here’s my card. This one is my personal blog, this one is my product review site, and this one is for blogging newbies."

"Hi. I’m Zandria. I’m the BlogHer Singles contributing editor."

"Ha! That’s funny! I came over because you seemed to be alone! Like, single! And you write about that! Ha ha ha ha! Isn’t that funny?"

"Um, yeah."

"Nice to meet you." Shut your mouth, Chili, and walk. away. NOW.

Aaaaaand scene.

That’s me, Chilihead. Makin’ friends and influencin’ people. It’s what I do, really. It’s a gift.

BlogHer 07: The Notes

chilihead — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:12:00 +0000

When it comes to note taking, I’m a pen and paper kind of gal. I hail from the times when not every Jane, Sally, and Betty had a laptop. We had to rely on spiral notebooks and ball-point pens and we liked it!

However, I was unsure about taking my pen and paper to a technology conference. I mean, BlogHer 07 is the height of it, isn’t it? I wondered if I would look like a complete dork carrying my elementary school gig around instead of my laptop. So I succumbed to the pressure and packed up my computer bag with all the cables, cords, and peripherals I could manage and set off for registration.

It took me about ten minutes to realize I was going to have a permanent limp or hump because I had purchased the heaviest, most elephantine "laptop" known to mankind. The quotes are there for the obvious reason that the thing was no longer in that category as far as I was concerned. Antique Mommy was in the same boat since she rarely changes her technology (ask her about her cell phone sometime). We glanced at each other and agreed without speaking we would need to hoof it back to the hotel (or find the shuttle) and dump the laptops. At this point neither of us cared as much about being cool as we did about our aging bones.

For the rest of the two-day conference I carried pen and paper to each of my sessions. I sat at the back of the room so gear-heads could have the tables and outlets, but I got my notes all the same. I’d like to share them with you, because I’m nice like that.

I attended these sessions:

Tax Information (for those of us thinking of making money with our blogs)
Streamlining Workflow (who doesn’t like to be efficient?)
Tools to Build Traffic and SEO (that’s Search Engine Optimization)
Several others that didn’t really lend themselves to note-taking

If you’re interested to see my cryptic notes and links to many of the hand-outs, you can download my Word document.

More about BlogHer 07 tomorrow.

BlogHer07: Embarrassing Moment

chilihead — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:19:38 +0000

It’s good to be out of your comfort zone. Change is a part of life.
If you don’t put yourself out there, you don’t know how far you can go.

Of course, if you don’t put yourself out there, there is no danger of embarrassing yourself either. Which is where my first BlogHer07 story begins.

I met Jessica from Oh, the Joys and made a complete fool of myself. I actually approached her (very out of character for me, I assure you) and she was gracious from the word go. She was excited to see me. Had been looking for me. Asked intelligent questions about how I liked the different panels presented at BlogHer.

I’ll see your intelligent conversation and fold.

Instead of answering her questions and returning them, I laughed. Then asked where to get wine. Then laughed. Then words just started tumbling out of my mouth. I don’t even know what words they were. Panic set in. The only way to stop the madness would be to turn and walk away. Which is what I did.

As I removed myself from the situation, I turned and threw a "Heh heh, gotta get some wine to take the edge off. Bye!" at her. She looked utterly bewildered. She said good-bye, but the look in her eyes was that of someone who didn’t know whether what had just happened had actually happened.

I was mortified. I kept walking. When I found Antique Mommy, the first words out of her mouth were, "Chili? Do you have a hole in your pants?"

"What?!?"

"Yeah."

"Where?" I look down. It’s my crotch. Nice.

The perfect end to the perfect cocktail party.