Well, we’re back from Greensboro - only to be heading out again tomorrow on our Tennessee road trip (Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga). We had a great time at ConvergeSouth and photographing downtown Greensboro.
I was very impressed with the organization level at ConvergeSouth. Sue Polinsky and Ed Cone did a wonderful job of keeping everything on track and not letting any of the session leaders go over their allotted time. (Frankly, it was the first I’ve seen of someone actually enforcing time limits at a conference!) Rusty and I attended (and recorded - the podcasts will be available on the ConvergeSouth media page eventually) Elizabeth Edwards’ session on building online communities; Robert and Maryam Scoble’s “10 Ways to a Killer Blog,” and Jim Rosenberg’s “Learning to Love Chaos.” Of the three, I enjoyed the one with Elizabeth Edwards the most. She was very personable and approachable, and I thought she had a lot of interesting things to say about community-building.
I know some of you geeks out there are wondering about the Scoble session. Well, frankly? Robert Scoble struck me as kind of a jerk. He was acting very domineering, and ordering Maryam around and not letting her talk. Not cool. Honestly, I was more interested in hearing from her, since I already know about him. I thought it was supposed to be a 50/50 session with both of them sharing their experiences with blogging, but apparently he thought it was an opportunity to order her to run up and down the stairs with the microphone. (When I mentioned this to Ed Cone, he was all, “Well, it can be difficult when there are people in the audience with questions and someone has to get to them…” O RLY? So, take turns! What’s so hard about that?)
What else… I’m about to have to run out for pole dancing class so I don’t have time to give a detailed blow-by-blow account, but I wanted to get this up in a somewhat timely fashion. Oh, I know what else: Saturday night, we had dinner with Mike Krempasky of RedState.com (and about 8 other people). Unfortunately, I started feeling sick halfway through the meal and we had to leave early. I know, I know… insert joke about Republicans making me sick.
Anyway, I really need to run; I’ll try to post more later. All in all I thought ConvergeSouth went really well and I’m looking forward to next year. I’ll leave you with my photos from ConvergeSouth and downtown Greensboro.
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9 Responses to "ConvergeSouth wrap-up"
Amber,
You are so sweet. I wish I had a chance to meet you in person. I am sorry you went away with that impression of Robert. He really is a great guy :) I had insisted that I wanted to play Operah and give people the microphone to talk. I was also nervous about speaking in public and had asked him to lead the talk. He has spoken at many conferences (this is my third one, however)and is the real expert here so I was leaning on him to lead the discussion. This was our first time talking together so thanks for being patient with us as we figure out the best way to share the stage.
I hope we all get a chance to meet in person and that you give Robert a second chance. I have learned so much from him and continue to learn everyday. We promise to do better next time. Thanks!
Hi Maryam,
Thanks for coming by! If I got the wrong impression then that was my mistake. I definitely understand being nervous, especially in front of that many people! Anyway, I didn’t mean it to sound like I thought the whole presentation was bad, because I didn’t; the 10 - er, 15! - points about blogging were excellent. And I love the GapingVoid cartoons. :)
Oh and btw we did meet in person, but just briefly; I was sitting in the auditorium at lunch time and you gave me a T-shirt!
oh now I remember. You were wearing glasses, so I didn’t recognize you right away from your picture here :) Thanks for the kind words.
Hey, I’m a jerk too. Why does Scoble get all the attention. I’m twice the jerk that Scoble is. C’mon.
Mr. Sun, next time I’ll give a class in how to be a jerk so you can get some attention. :-)
Sorry that I offended you Amber. Maryam had the handheld microphone. If I had done the running up and down the aisles, I would have had both microphones and would have kept Maryam from participating even more.
What’s that thing about the squeaky wheel getting the grease? It’s like a VIP lounge up in here. ;)
Heh. Mel, you’ve uncovered my secret motive. What a blogwhore I am! ;)
(j/k)
My wife used to say that :p
Hi, sorry for a little offtopic but a friend told me about your site and it’s really great. So keep it up :D
- Laura from http://lised.com/