I’m sitting here at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, enjoying some more free wifi. I just found out that my flight is going to be delayed about an hour, so I finally have some time to digest all the information I took in over the past few days at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo.

First off, it was amazing. I went to BlogWorld with a number of goals: 

• Network: I knew a lot of the other presenters and
  attendees at BlogWorld from blogging with them at Business Blog
  Consulting and from reading their blogs, but I had never met any of
  them face to face. I was looking forward to meeting with them
  face-to-face, chat them up, and most importantly, find out who could
  hold their liquor. Check.
   
• Get My Clients to Blog More: Too often after we’ve
  designed, created a strategy, and promoted a client’s blog, the client
  loses interest in it, before they can see a return on investment. I
  wanted to ask all of my business blogging consultant buddies and ask
  them how they handle this. Check.
   
• Understand the Social Media Landscape: I don’t know if
  that was one of my original goals, but as I reviewed my choice of
  workshops, they all revolved around social media. And, after the first
  day–the Entrepreneur and Executive Conference–I realized that I knew
  more than I thought. However, I also realized that there was so much
  more to learn. I had eureka moment after eureka moment during different
  workshops on how what I was learning could be applied to our business
  and to our client’s business. And, check!

Looking back on the past three days I learned a few important lessons:

• You must give before you get. If you run into social media
  looking to make a quick buck you’re going to end up looking foolish.
  New media and social media are about building relationships. Yes, your
  ultimate goal is to grow your business, but if you’re not putting your
  customers’ needs first you’re not going to succeed.
• The mores of new media are based on the tenets of old fashion
  marketing and communications. In other words, no matter the media or
  method of communication, long-term success in business is based on
  relationships. See above.
• There are a lot more iPhones in circulation than I realized.
  It’s hard to be the first one on your block with a new toy if your
  neighbors are bloggers. During the first day I think about 1/3 of the
  people had iPhones.
   
• If you’re going to a technology conference, bring a multi-pronged
  outlet. Several times all the outlets were filled with other laptops’
  cords. I asked if I could "plug in" and immediately gained a couple of
  new friends who needed power, too. I was using the Outlets to Go Power Strip by Monster Power. It’s much more compact than the PowerSquid.
   

I’m still struggling with how to best present what I learned at
BlogWorld. I thought of doing a post for every conference I went to, or
doing one for each day, or just one overall post.

Originally I was planning on "live blogging", in other words, just
putting up my notes from each conference as soon as it was over.
However, after problems with the wifi connection–which unfortunately
lasted all week–I decided to just take notes in Word and try and put
some context to them at the end of each day.

However, that didn’t quite work out either. There was just too many
interesting people to meet and talk to, and of course I was in Vegas.
So, here I am, waiting on my plane, and starting my recap.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Social Media Consultant