Last weekend I got to attend BloggyCon15 – my very first weekend blogging conference.  I was pretty pumped about it for several reasons.

Number one it was being held at Cedar Point which meant it would be close to my family so I could combine a trip to see family while either going or coming.  Number two it meant that I would get to see at least 3 of my friends from North Iowa because Sara of Travel With Sara, Donna of DonnaHup.com and Jeni of JeniEats were on a panel discussion talking about how local matters.

It was Jeni’s birthday so we assumed the role of minions whenever we could.

The drive from North Carolina to Sandusky, Ohio was simply beautiful and I can not tell you how happy I was to know that I did not have to drive thorough Chicago either on my way there or the way home.  The leaves will be changing soon and I could see the start of tinges of yellow and red along the way and I am anxiously awaiting a full blown kaleidoscope of color in the coming weeks in the mountains of North Carolina.

Being the first full length weekend conference that I have attended I was not sure exactly how it would play out but it was exactly as I had anticipated.  We followed a schedule and walked from the conference center at Cedar Point to another conference type room in The Breakers Hotel on the amusement park property.  It was easy to get back and forth and as always with any type of conference I was glad I had layers to wear.  Anyone who has suffered sitting in a freezing cold meeting at an event like this knows that a sweater is a good addition in packing.

The speakers were engaging and imparted a lot of great information both for bloggers who blog with the purpose of making money and for those of us who are a little more laid back in our blogging approach and who do not blog for a main source of income.  There was something for everyone but it was geared a bit more for those who seek to monetize their blog.  That makes perfect sense as the sponsors who were there were there specifically to form relationships with bloggers in order to help promote their products.

So what did I learn?  Since many of my readers are non-bloggers I will just highlight a few things here and if you want to know more just ask me.  I won’t go into great detail but will try to share some fun facts.

1. Soon you will be able to hire a babysitter or a handyman through Amazon.com.  YES!   Read more about it in this article on Huffington Post.
2. The average distance we are from our phone at any one time is 3 feet.  A Kickstarter campaign offers consumers the NoPhone that is basically a phone shaped non phone. It is designed for what purpose?  I do not know.
3. YouTube continues to be a great place to find amazing videos from instructional videos to music videos to viral videos like my friend Donna’s video of her husband’s truck driving incident.  Did you know that Taylor Swift and Katy Perry both started out on YouTube?
4. The popular Wikipedia site continues to be a fairly reliable source for information.  However did you know that Congress has been banned from editing content because of the bias that is a result?  IP addresses can be tracked, folks.
5. Even the Queen photobombs selfies.  Check it out here.
6. Content on blogs needs to be engaging and relevant and interesting.  I know I usually break all the “rules” on my blog but it is because it is mine .  I like to have a variety of things that I write about and I have learned that that works for me and for my readers. Will I ever be a huge blogger in Blogdom?  Most likely not but I believe that what I do here, especially with Comments for a Cause, is important and serves a purpose.

There were a multitude of wonderful speakers including Dan R. Morris, Rachel Martin, Sarah Mock .

Dan R. Morris and Rachel Martin

Jeni Flaa, Sara Broers and Donna Hup

Of  course my 3 North Iowa friends pictured above  rocked the panel Local Connections Matter No Matter Where You Live.  I learned a lot and made a lot of great new connections, enjoyed time with friends new and old and loved being in the amusement park.  That in itself is another post so stay tuned for that!

Thanks for coming along with me on my first BloggyCon trip.  Questions?  Just ask me in the comments and I promise I will answer.  Check out Jeni’s post here.  She even made a cool video.