John Chow Gets Wiped by Small Bloggers!

Ted Murphy is one of a kind. He’s an incredible entrepreneur and plows ahead regardless of the obstacles. It’s really great to know this guy, because he’s shown me that good things happen if you keep working hard. It’s been an interesting ride to watch Izea grown out of PayPerPost. I was really excited when I saw everyone that would be speaking, as well as the topics they covered.

Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Shoemaker was there, and honestly, it was the “back story” of his life that really held my interest. It reminded me that we’re all the same, just people out here doing our thing, and when we push and work hard, good things can happen. Sitting on our laurels isn’t going to get us there.

I must confess, one of the other reasons I came down to the conference was for a chance to hang out with a couple of my friends that I talk with pretty regularly. It was a blast. Great combination when you can combine fun with learning.

Merlin Mann was the keynote on Saturday morning, and he gets right to the meat of it- Get better! Seriously, if you get a chance to hear him speak, he was motivating, and really gets you thinking. I knew as he spoke, I needed to make changes, and not just little ones. The thing is, I do want to get better. I don’t want to just settle for doing what I’ve been doing on some of my other blogs. That’s the cool thing about listening to a good speaker, they make you WANT TO TAKE ACTION!

John Chow, Loren Feldman, Neal Patel, and the list goes on. In our world of online blogging and websites, these are people that can really speak our language. People were open with information, helpful, and open for questions. I really enjoyed the give and take that was going on. It wasn’t a one up kind of thing, it was a “let me share what helps me” kind of event.

I can’t say it was all fabulous and perfect. While 90% of the sessions I got something out of, I was a little disappointed in the “Social Networking” panel. This isn’t personal, but if you don’t care about social networking or aren’t a fan of it, why discuss it on a panel? Also, it seemed like it got off track, losing focus, and just centered on twitter. Bring something new, tell us something we may not know about, or show us ways to use networking, that we may not be aware of. Don’t rehash the stuff that 99% of the people sitting in the room all ready know.

My favorite speaker on Friday was Lea of LeaLea.net. She touched on branding, and it was something that really hit home with me. I’ll be expanding on this in a separate post, when I have a moment to sit down with my notes. I’m sitting at the hotel this morning, and getting ready to catch a flight in a bit. Loved Lea!

I loved that the conference combined fun and knowledge. Learning new things is how we grow. You can’t just go on thinking we know “everything” like my 14 year old does, because with growth comes maturity. In my time as a blogger, a little over 2 years now, I’ve beend developing in different ways. I’m learning I want a different audience at times, and that I want to be better. I realized I’m lazy at times, and that’s not fair to the people who take the time to read me. I realized quite a bit, and it’s got my brain firing all over the place!

What I learned more than anything is that I want to be here again next year.

One last thought- we beat John Chow at the Scavenger Hunt, and that alone is fun to shout out! Thanks to John for getting in a picture with our team. We had fun taking the picture, and thanks to John for being a good sport as we “trash talked” him with big smiles. He’s a nice guy, and it was nice to meet him in person. He may not be found easily in Google, but we found him in Florida this weekend!

Thanks to Alli from AlwaysAlli.com for the Izeafest pics she took, and allowing me to share them. She’s a really great girl and someone I’m glad to call a friend.