I’m not in Los Angeles. I’m in the Bay Area this weekend. The question is why?

The biggest reason is financing. I had a couple unexpected expenses over the summer and as Blogworld got closer, I realized that it was going to be tough for me financially to justify going. The Blogworld organizers do a really great job of packing in a lot of content into their conferences, so I wasn’t worried about the value of the ticket. But, by the time you factor in the cost of the ticket, hotel room for several nights (even at a great conference rate) and travel expenses, I trip like Blogworld is at least $1,000.

As Blogworld got closer, the decision became whether or not I wanted to go to Blogworld or did I want to take a trip sometime in the next couple of months to visit my sister, brother-in-law and two nephews in Tennessee. Family connections are uber important to me, so I choose the Tennessee trip.

I hope all the folks at Blogworld are having an awesome time! I hope to see you all next year.

Oh, and for an additional post that I did today for NaBloPoMo, you can find it here:
Make a Special Child’s Holiday Extra Special

I actually wrote two blog posts today:

Random Acts of Caring – Green Eggs and Ham

Medical Coverage Needed for Rare Condition in Ontario — A young lady in Oakville, Ontario has been denied the specialized medical treatment she needs. We created a petition on Care2, and I share some of my personal story.

• Chris Brogan - The Google Plus 50
• Jeremiah Owyang - First Take: Google+ Gets Features Right –But Offers No Reason to Leave Facebook
• Chris Brogan - How to Blog With Google Plus
• ReadWriteWeb – How Businesses Can Make the Most of Google Plus

Here’s some other posts I’ve been curating over on Pearltrees …

• Tim Hayden
• Adam Beaugh – Jackson Family wines
• Kerry Lange – Yahoo!
• Dominic Phillips – Dominic Phillips Event Mktg

• How have online registration tools — like Eventbrite and Facebook Events — affected attendance?
  • Not every tool is right for every event. – Dominic
  • Social media is great for getting the word out there, but you need to get them to a ticket sale and get them to commit.
  • The ones that are being successful are the ones that are building both their creative and social media into the ticket sale.
  • Don’t build a great interactive experience and lots of buzz but then have a very flat ticket sale experience.
  • People are being selective about where they are going and how they are spending their money. If you have video, photos, and can show people that your event is where their friends are going they’re more likely to go to your event. – Kerry
• Objectives of event
  • Brand awareness
  • Sales
• Every thing you do needs to ask “why am I doing this?” – Dominic
• Pushing social hard during events can actually backfire — especially if the event is exclusive. — Adam
• Curate good content
  • Listen and curate the right content. Don’t broadcast every good message. Make sure you’re sharing the right message. – Adam
• Increasing the offline / online connection
  • Yahoo! did awareness around the election both online and offline. – Kerry
  • Organizing offline wine tasting events around the country and combining that with a social spend to mobilize primary fan base and give them information to share with their friends. – Adam
  • Look at marketing as holistic. Blurring of the world that used to be seen as either / or and is now becoming the same thing. – Dominic
  • Tagging feature on Facebook had the best global spread. Especially for sharing after the event. – Adam
• What about boomers?
  • Boomers might not be checking in with location-based services but they are definitely using Facebook.
  • Know your audience. If your talking to younger folks, an experience about Corona might be good, but if you’re talking to boomers, something like Chardonnay might be the best message.

Resources:

• The Dirty Little Secret of Mobile Apps