This year’s Blogging While Brown Conference in Washington, D.C. was great as usual. Actually I rate it as better on a personal level since, as a second time attendee, I was meeting old friends from last year again. Many of us tweet and Facebook through out the year to stay in touch so the reunion effect was really nice. Made more new friends this year too of course and I’ll introduce you to some of them over the next few days.
I got into the nation’s capitol on Friday afternoon and didn’t get to catch the first session Who We Are, What it Means, Why We Matter. Had to check into the hotel and freshen up after a full day of travel. Fortunately Maurice Cherry one of the panelists had someone taking notes which you can read here. Maurice is the owner of 3eighteen media and creator of The Black Weblog Awards. He was joined on the panel by University of Iowa professor Dr. Andre Brock, and blogger Anna John of Sepia Mutiny.
It was good to see Andre again and to meet Maurice. He and I had a chance to chat briefly while I took some video of him and Lamar Tyler – one half of the Black And Married With Kids blog – talking to each other. Didn’t meet Anna – because I missed the panel – and walked by her a couple of times during the weekend not realizing who she was so may be we’ll catch up next time around.
Speaking of meeting new people, I bumped into a couple of folks on the way from the Metro to the conference center. At the rail station near the center I met Patrice Muhammad of the Fascinating Womanhood blog who happened to be asking the attendant for directions to the Washington D.C. Conference Center, the conference meeting site. Along the way we met a young guy, Leon Scott who helped us find the right meeting room in the humongous center. Check out his site and Listen to Leon for his humorous take on life.
A fun tradition of Friday night is game night. After the panel there was light food for the dinner hour. Got a chance to roam the room with my camera and video cam (continuing to network as I went along of course) and got some nice stills and digital film. Working on composing the images into something decent very soon so hang tight.
After chowing and hearing from a few sponsors we got down to the fun part of the evening. We had seriously amazing prizes this year. I sat in at the spades table with Andrea Amir of Smart Money Chicks. We played Danyelle Smith Little, The Cubicle Chick , and Curtis Johnson the Communications Associate for the NAACP’s national office. Andrea and I dispatched Danyelle and Curtis and moved on to the championship round against Michelle and Deirdre on our way to winning netbooks. Yeah, netbooks, niiiice.
As you can see we had a wide range and breadth of professional and online experience to mix and mingle with and learn from. And this was just Friday night. Over the next few days this week I’ll write about my insights from the great panels during the main Saturday sessions. Plenty of great tools you’ll be able to use for your personal and professional blogging. Stay tuned.
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