Evo Conference ’11: The Highs, The Lows And The OMG Scaries

This is my wrapup of the highs and lows of Evo ’11.

High Points of Evo ’11:

1. Fantastic sessions. I really enjoyed Dennis from The Next Corner‘s 3-hour workshop on SEO. He is a wealth of knowledge and sincerely wanted to help every last person in the room. And, he talked to Natalie and I for over an hour at the Friday night party about more in-depth SEO stuff. I can’t recommend this guy highly enough. So generous.

I also loved Danielle Wiley and Carol Schiller‘s workshop on pitch writing. It was totally hands-on – write a pitch DURING the session and have one of them critique your work. Intimidating, but hugely helpful.

2. Fantastic keynotes.  All of the speakers were really amazing, but the closing keynote, delivered by Me Ra Koh, was staggeringly beautiful. Listening to her speak was worth the price of the conference pass all by itself.  You can watch her keynote here.

3. Nature’s Path and McDonald’s. I loved the people from Nature’s Path foods…they were so nice and put on a fabulous healthy breakfast that I really appreciated.  McDonald’s had a great suite and I thought their Asian chicken salad was yummy…and so were their new mango pineapple smoothies. I am all about the food.

4. Casual vibe. I liked that this conference was really low-key, people weren’t glammed up. It was relaxing to not stress over wardrobe!

5. Every meal was provided.  Thank you, Evo team!!! Dinner was included every night. Loved not having to worry if we were going to be invited out to dinner by anyone! And who wants to make reservations and truck out for a food after a long day of sessions?

7. Meeting my buddy. Getting to spend the weekend with my buddy Natalie from Mommy of a Monster was awesome. She is a great person and we had so much fun.

Low Points of Evo ’11:

1. Facebook session: I felt this session was directed at a different audience than was in attendance. I think many of the tips were more for people who had never set up a Facebook fan page and much of it had a brand perspective v. a blogger perspective.  The brand perspective, from Circle of Moms and Southwest Airlines, was fascinating, but I would have liked to see more tactics and information about growing that aspect of my own blog.

2. Location of sponsor suites. The sponsors each had their own hotel suite, so you had to leave the session area and truck up into the hotel to talk to sponsors. It made it a bit more difficult, and I never actually got up to the suites during the day. I prefer more of a dedicated expo area. Because I’m lazy.

3. Zip line. That I missed out on riding it is my biggest regret of the conference

The OMG Scaries of the Conference

The biggest OMG SCARY moment of the conference was when Natalie, myself and The Working Mom got on a gondola to ride allllllll the way up the mountain to attend the closing party. All three of us? Afraid of heights. So you can imagine that when the gondola stopped dead in its tracks for several minutes, then began blowing viciously from side to side due to high winds, we were lining up to be the First Bloggers Ever To Wet Their Pants For A Reason Other Than Laughter At A Conference.

We looked up the mountain and were relieved that we were almost to the top, though. So when the gondola finally began moving again, imagine our surprise when it crested and we were staring down into a tree-covered abyss – a giant ravine that the gondola had to traverse with the wind still blowing.

We all kept our minds off the fact that we were about to throw up by tweeting incessantly.

If you can’t see my tweet, it says HOLY EFF.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t add one final high to the conference – and that was being hired by Clever Girls Collective to represent them at Evo. It was fantastic to tell people about the great things Clever Girls Collective does, especially in light of some spirited conference discussions about when and how bloggers are compensated. I was proud to say I’m part of a network that seeks to have bloggers work authentically AND be paid fairly. And, it was fab to meet Sheila.

I highly recommend Evo. Learned a ton, had a great time.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tagged as: clevergirls, evo conference