I’m back from a whirl wind weekend at Blissdom Canada!
If there is one takeaway that I leave these conferences with each and every time, it’s that no matter how much I love being online, chatting via social media etc. nothing compares to meeting, hugging and laughing with people in person. (It helped I also had the greatest room mate ever 😉
I went into Blissdom Canada this year with a bit of a different approach – since I was invited to be a community leader, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to participate in a lot of the hands on learning parts of the conference (and that was ok! I think my presentation went really well, a huge thank you to everyone who came to table #19!), but it also meant that I was a bit more free to meet, listen and engage.
Last year I took in every last minute of learning that I could, but felt I missed out on some in depth conversations. This year, I let the conversations take precedent and that was fantastic. I heard some great speakers, but also got to really meet some new and old friends.
As I did last year, I left with renewed love for this space – for my own blog, my own purpose and also for those around me. I think sometimes the loudest, most negative voices seem to take ‘front page’ in the online space. They cause the most commotion, the most controversy, the most reaction. But the reality is, the kind, quiet, hard working, savvy, intellegent and fun people who fall somewhere outside of that are the ones that have much more to offer. To say. To give. Blissdom reminded me of that.
The nice guys can finish first. And in fact, they put on one heck of a conference.
This week on the blog I’ll try to get my presentation and notes up from my microsession about Growing an Engaged Community Organically. But I also have some posts brewing inside of me that might make us think. One on Evergreen Brickworks that I went to on Sunday and was so impressed. And don’t worry, there are some fun ones too, including a special one about Fisher Price and a HUGE giveaway that’s coming up.
Thank you to Blissdom for letting me be a part of your event.
Thank you to those I met for the first time for being kind and introducing yourselves and adding to my list of people to chat with.
Thank you to old friends who always make me feel welcome, who remind me of my own uniqueness (and what I could bring to this space) and for making me laugh.
I certainly found my ‘bliss’ at Blissdom this year.
Were you at Blissdom? What did you learn?
