A fwe weekends back, I headed up to Dallas for Round 2 of Bloggy Boot Camp. I enjoyed it so much in Philly, and I was excited to hang out with some of my local blogging friends. We started off the weekend with a lovely cocktail hour sponsored by Kroger, who really put out an incredible spread of cheeses & offered us some lovely wines. It was a great way to break the ice & get in the mingling mood. I love that Kroger is really reaching out to bloggers to work with them, and they did an amazing job of sponsoring Bloggy Boot Camp (hello mini-massages, mimosas, and chocolate covered strawberries!).
Everybody was up and excited Saturday morning to get checked in & get the conference kicked off. I love how we had assigned tables for the morning sessions- it was a great way to mix & mingle with new people. The content and format were similar to BBCPhilly, but I still really enjoyed getting all that information again & being reminded (inspired) by so many great tips from all the speakers.
I just adore Tiffany Romero & Francesca Banducci, they do such a fabulous job organizing the Bloggy Boot Camps & are so friendly and welcoming to everybody. We ate a delicious lunch back up on the top floor, surrounded with great views of Dallas. I think the number of attendees was about 150 (maybe a little higher?), but the conference still felt small & intimate.
After a day jam-packed with information & fabulous ideas for the business of blogging, we got down to business with a wine party sponsored by Mirassou. It was a great chance to try all of their delicious wines, meet the wine maker, and do some de-briefing after a long day of learning.
I was thrilled to room with Lisa Stauber of Shiny Things Media, aka Milehamama. She also runs our awesome Houston Blogging Chicks group, which meets monthly, and the #TXBloggers chat every Tuesday night on twitter. She’s been helping me quite a bit with getting Grow Soul Beautiful launched. She lives only a few miles from me & I’ve had such a great time getting to know her & I’m so impressed with all that she’s accomplished and her SEO genius.
I’ve got to admit, my poor dSLR is feeling neglected latley as I’m taking tons of iPhone & instagram photos. Here’s a brief recap of all these photos: I carpooled up to Dallas with these lovely ladies, thanks to Champion Chevrolet. I couldn’t get enough of the Kroger cheeses & loved seeing my friend Amanda Oak’s slide about the Jackass Whisperer on Kind Over Matter being used in a presentation on authenticity.
Here’s a photo of (most of) the Houston blogging crew. I’m so glad to meet these lovely ladies & they’ve been such a great network for blogging support over the last year.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Hubby let me borrow his swank car to drive to Austin.
I noticed that there were mostly women at this conference. Are these boot camps only for female bloggers or did that just happen to be the case?
They are open to everybody & there were a few men. The group that runs the camps, The SITS girls, is aimed towards women, but all are welcome.