WOW! and WHEW!

WOW! and WHEW!

Short update: Spent all of Sunday at BloggerCon2003 [1]. WOW! Kudos to Dave Winer [2] and Wendy Koslow [3] (et al) for putting on an excellent conference.

As has been documented hereabouts, left NY late in the afternoon Saturday, spend the night with friends in Providence, then arrived in Cambridge Sunday at the crack of dawn.

Morning: attended the "General BOF" session. I knew this would be a good meeting, since the first person I spotted in the room was Roland Tanglao [4]. Just a few blogposts ago I mentioned that Roland was one of the people I'd hoped to spend some time with at BloggerCon. And wouldn't you know it?! Roland and Britt Blaiser [5] were demonstrating the very item [6] I'd wanted to discuss with him. A good omen to the rest of the day!

Next session: Jon Udell's [7] Aggregator session. Had lunch with a bevy of bloggers (Dave, et al at the next table; Britt Blaiser [8], Jim Moore [9], Doc Searls [10], and Renee Blodgett [11] -- the 5 of us crowding into a table for four; loads of other attendees/participants from the conference all over the place at a nearby sandwich shop.

Afternoon: attended the AudioBlogging session, then Dave's "Fat Man In A Tub" closing session, which was worth the whole trip.

Afterwards a group of us hit the Pete's CoffeeHouse in Cambridge, then were hanging out on some benches outside the place, continuing to talk, and getting serenaded by Blogger Joey Devilla [12] who goes almost nowhere without his trusty accordion.

As night was falling and I had to drive back to NY, I had to skip the after-BC dinner [13]. Gee, maybe I should have stayed, since Doc refers to it as effectively the last event at BloggerCon.

So off I went, back for a quick stop in Providence where I'd left one of the three pair of glasses always on my person, and was lucky enough to have a dinner waiting for me as I arrived. Then I hit the road and drove back to NY. What a pleasant drive -- minimal traffic, the Cubs-Braves game most of the way, and that rental car from Enterprise, in which one could hide an aircraft carrier.

At BloggerCon I put a face to the name in many instances. Met a load of people, includng many with whom I've shared correspondence and links or whatever over the years.

A more complete report will follow. Came back to an agenda that is very full, and will be working like a crazy man this week.

Bottom line: it was a very good conference, far outperforming expectations (which were pretty high, btw). In most cases the egos were checked at the door, the free flow of ideas was wonderful. I learned a lot, am of a mind to follow up with people I met, questions that arose, contacts made and ideas that arose all while attending BloggerCon.

What more could one want from a conference? Again, kudos to Dave Winer [2] and his crew. Looking forward to BC2 in 2004!

Whew! What a full day it was. Tired today, but also feeling quite optimistic and energized. Nice way to feel after attending a conference and driving about 500 miles in the space of 36 hours.