1. That exhibitor booths (10 x 10 with no storage area) cost $3500
2. That bloggers aren't as cool as artists
3. That I have to go mobile or die
4. How to play Angry Birds
Sometimes you just have to step outside of your comfort zone. I know the art fair world pretty well so I took the time and money to go to Los Angeles, November 3-5, to attend BlogWorld, held at the LA Convention Center. I attended with my son, Scott Fox, author and online small business coach, to learn more about the industry, ways to grow my business and to network with others who are in this category of "web workers."
Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod
It was attended by bloggers, software developers, authors, hosting agencies, interactive advertising agents, social media managers and people wanting to meet all of the above.
Most of my time is spent here at my desk, doing work online. It is work that I really enjoy and I interact with lots of people everyday, but being in a bigger world is quite exhilarating. All of us in the art fair business are wanderers who look forward to the next town and the next new event so it was great for me to leave these four walls and meet others who live their lives similarly.
There were more than 375 speakers with over 150 sessions, covering social media business, tourism, fitness, food, mobile, traffic, communities, marketing, creating content, apps and monetization. It was pretty overwhelming, but they leavened it with great parties each night.
I met Phil Hollows who owns Feedblitz (for all of you who get my RSS feeds) and strategized with Scott, about my art fair websites and where to go next with them. Actually he built my first three websites and then said, "go Mom, this should work for you." I came away with more ideas to enliven all the sites and extend my outreach to bring more customers to you at the nation's art fairs.
I was especially interested in finding anything about art, not much there, except artist Natasha Wescoat who was painting on site and her painting was going to go up for auction to benefit the United Way at the end of the conference. The most interesting person I met was Hugh MacLeod, a cartoonist whose niche is helping companies with communicating. That's his work above.
Natasha at work
Woodworker Bobby Hagstrom has a very cool site: theartofwoodshopdesign.com. The information there would be helpful to many artists in putting their work areas together.
If you're interested in learning more you might enjoy this video that Scott put together: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150528350592837
Home now, still processing everything and ready to go mobile. Heaven help me, I am not enthralled with learning new technology and will need your help.
Comments
The link works fine when viewed with a desktop computer. But Scott's article, while inviting comments, doesn't display them after posting. Not sure if this is a Yahoo issue. Oh well.
You can't read the article on a mobile phone. The link works fine, but yahoo redirects a mobile device to a mobile website that is basically content-free. Ironic, given that one of Scott's points is "go Mobile or die.". Try it on an iPhone, see for yourself :-)
Even more interesting, I posted a comment on it, and the comment disappeared after I logged in with my yahoo.com user creds.
What does that mean, Jim? Does it mean you can't read it here? Here's another link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9155055/6_trends_you_misse... Is this better?
If anyone wants another wrap-up of what was happening at BlogWorld, take a look at this: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/9155055/6_trends_you_misse...
I really am disliking this trend towards nano-sized devices. Especially as I'm now nearing the age where bigger type makes me happy! :)
iTunes will sync your Safari bookmarks between your phone and your computer. And you can sync bookmarks between browsers on your desktop if you use more than one browser. On the iPhone I don't think you have a choice of browsers, really, as Safari is the core engine built in to the phone, and as such, it's used not only for browsing, but also by apps that use its API functionality to access the internet.
I figured you knew that Firefox Home wasn't a browser, but others might not have known that.
Personally I haven't found that having all those bookmarks on the phone is a real benefit. Most websites I can remember, and if I can't, a good keyword search usually turns them up. My wifely unit, Karyn, is awesome at harnessing the power of Google. She can find anything on the interwebz.
Btw., Apple released a bug fix for OS5, today.
There is another application for the I-phone that syncs with Safari, and I may have to try that one to see if it functions better. Then there is the 360 web browser which includes Firefox Sync.
Jim, I know that Firefox Home is not a browser. All it does is grab my bookmarks, etc. and use it with Safari. I'm not a fan of Safari, especially on the I-phone. However, I might have to play with it a little to figure it out. Connie, I tried to send you a message via the I-phone to your Inbox and I don't think it went through. Let me know if you get one of my test messages. I'm going to try and post a response here to see if that works. It may be that I am just too lame to do it right. OR! It may be that someone may have to create a stand alone fully functioning app for that.
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