July 22, 2010 | BlogHer,Blogging

After five years and six BlogHer conferences, I know so many members of the BlogHer community, it’s inevitable that I won’t connect with everyone at BlogHer next month. And I’m just going to have to deal with it.

Here’s where I’m planning to be Thursday August 5  Tuesday August 3 - Sunday August 8. If you are in the same places, I hope we connect.

Tuesday August 3, 2010

Late afternoon train to the city.

Wednesday August 4, 2010

Business appointment then hanging out with good friend and BlogHer room-mate Joanne Bamberger (@PunditMom)

Thursday August 5, 2010

11am-5pm: Liberty Mutual Responsibility Project, Ellis Island tour*

and logistics willing, stopping in at all these events:

4-8pm:  Kaspersky Lab Virus Analyst Summit (Westin Times Square)*

5-8pm:  Avery Social Luxe

6-8pm:  Bloggers Night Out with Martha Stewart*

8-11pm: Schick Party, W. 40th Street (offsite public event)

7-10pm: The People’s Party (Hilton)

Friday August 6, 2010

10:30-11:45: FTC panel (speaking)

2:45-4pm: ROYO, Social Media is Bringing Sexy Back to Branding (speaking)

6-10pm: BlogHer Reception and Gala Welcome Party

Saturday August 7, 2010

noon-12:35   Professional Blogging For Dummies Book Signing

Progressive Parties

6-9pm: Green Affair

6-9pm: Blogalicious

8-11pm: Sparklecorn

10-1am: CheesburgHer

Sunday August 8, 2010

AM: Central Park Zoo. Good friend Celeste Lindell (@AverageJane) is planning to join me. Maybe you will too?

After lunch: B&H Photo

If you’d like to join me on either of these excursions, just let me know. Best way is probably Twitter (@sgetgood)

3:00pm Train home!!

Disclosure: Starred (*) events are hosted events to which I was invited for one reason or another. Avery Social Luxe is a public party with limited space that sold out early. Everything else I listed above was/is open to all BlogHer attendees, although some events did “sell out” due to capacity constraints. My Sunday activities are personal, but I’d love folks to join me if they are interested.

Updated on July 31st.

February 5, 2010 | Airlines,Blogging

So, maybe I was a little nuts to jam 5 speaking things in four days across 2 states requiring air travel to/from Providence, Rhode Island and Nashville, Tennessee. In the winter.

But I really wanted to speak at both conferences — Blissdom in Nashville and ETC in Providence. So I said yes, and crossed my fingers for good weather.

And the weather wasn’t too bad at either of my destinations. Unfortunately, the latest snowpocalypse was forecast to hit the Mid-Atlantic on the day I needed to travel back to Providence (that would be today!).

My original Southwest flights, through Baltimore, were canceled Thursday evening, so I rebooked on Continental through Newark. That flight got canceled this afternoon, so the airline moved me to a flight tomorrow night (Saturday). That wouldn’t do much for getting me back in time for a presentation tomorrow morning so I called to speak to an agent who assured me that, no the flight was today, just two hours before the original departure.

So I hauled it for the airport. Only to find when I checked in, that the Continental Airlines phone rep was an absolute idiot. I was booked tomorrow.

BUT the ticket agent at Continental in Nashville was smarter than the phone rep and  managed to get me a seat on a flight leaving in 15 minutes. If I ran, I could make it. I made it with about 5 minutes to spare, thanks to wonderful fellow travelers who let me cut in line.

And when I got to the gate, the gate agent fixed the back half of my reservation so I could get to Providence from Newark.

So here I sit with about another hour to wait (I’ve already been here for about 4) but I’m moving steadily northward.

Many thanks to the Continental Airlines ticket and gate agents in Nashville today for their help.

Bread and water to the reservations system and the dumb ass phone rep I spoke with.

And if you have to kill a chunk of time (and haven’t eaten all day) the Vino Volo in Terminal C at Newark is a lovely place to pass the time. I even found an outlet.

July 31, 2009 | Blogging

Last Sunday I attended the first Travel Blog Exchange meeting in Chicago. I was in town for BlogHer and had already planned to stay Sunday to do some sightseeing. Instead I decided to attend the meeting to get a better flavor of the travel blogging community.

The organizers did a terrific job. They managed to get sponsors for the entire thing, making cost to attendees zero. The panels and speakers were excellent – how to write a lively successful travel blog, working with PR (a topic that comes up in every blogging community), the difference between travel journalism and blogging, and podcasting/videocasting.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that the travel blogging community is also concerned with the proposed revisions to the FTC guidelines for endorsements and testimonials. As a panelist pointed out, you can’t return a trip or offer it as a giveaway to your readers. As a result, travel bloggers need to be even more careful about what they accept from marketers and make sure that it fits their blog.

This was a very focused audience, and the sponsors were part of the community, not big brands. As a result, the few short sponsor presentations were fairly organic to the content and quite interesting to me, a travel blog newbie. Every preregistered attendee also got a terrific swag bag, including a High Sierra travel backpack from Hertz, Ask Arthur Frommer: And Travel Better, Cheaper, Smarter, gift cards for Gogo Internet and Boingo, a coupon for a level 1 Rosetta Stone course  and an Energizer reusable battery recharger. Gogo Internet also shared their special offer for the month of August: Save 50% on Gogo Inflight Internet access with promo code 158FLF7365, thru 8/31/09

I was also able to meet a few BlogHers who are also travel writers, @MomMostTraveled, @KitchenGadgetGirl and @CajunMama, as well as spend a little time with friend @KimMoldofsky. So, while I wish I had booked the sold-out architectural boat tour for the afternoon in advance (next time!), I don’t regret spending part of the day getting to know the travel blog space a little bit better.

An unexpected bonus (in an otherwise disastrous trip home that night) was meeting Jessica Spiegel from Bootsnall.com at the airport, and recognizing each other by virtue of the brand new backpacks. We shared a power strip and alternately guarded the other’s belongings as we searched for food and flight information.