My time in Vegas for Blog World Expo is already over! I guess time flies when you’re having fun.
The family and I drove in on Tuesday, and we’re headed back today. Although BWE runs through the entire weekend, I don’t think my family could last that long in Vegas. This was our first “long” trip since we had our son 9 months ago, and he did awesome! I’m so proud of him!
Next year, I’ll definitely stay the entire time. In just two short days, I’ve met a ton of awesome people – finally shaking hands with people I’ve been online friends with for a very long time, and meeting people who I’ve never heard of before who are doing amazing things on their blogs.
Here are just some of the wonderful people I met in person and actually hung out with:
I’m sure I missed a few people (sorry if I did! most of the above handed me business cards), but honestly it was such a humbling experience to meet everyone that I did.
It was especially cool to hang out with Leo Babauta from ZenHabits.net, who I’ve always looked up to and admired for what he does and what he has accomplished. We must have chatted for several hours at one point – some of it business related (which I must say was VERY helpful) and some of it totally random, but definitely fun. If you ever wondered if he was as nice and as wise a person as he seems on his blog…he is. No question about it.
As far as the event and the speakers, I sat in on a few presentations and they were great, however I felt like the presentations were more for the new blogger – at least today’s presentations. Not everyone watches the presentations though, and many people stand in the hallways outside of the conference rooms just to network. I actually found that my time spent networking and building relationships with other people was more valuable than the information I actually learned in the presentations I sat in.
I think the biggest thing I learned this week was something that I picked up just from hanging around some of the most successful bloggers here: they all have the drive to help others accomplish something. Whether it’s helping someone make money online, take fantastic photos, commence a raw food diet, help kids stay active – whatever it is, their primary goal is to help others, and because they do that so well, they have become successful entrepreneurs.
I’m quite tired, so I’m going to leave it at that until Monday, but here are a few pictures from the event:
My Badge!
One of Darren Rowse’s (problogger.net) Many Presentations
Chris Ducker (VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com) & Me!
Leo Babauta (ZenHabits.net) & Me!
Thanks for following me on my journey to my first Blog World Expo! Maybe I can land a speaking gig next year? We’ll see. Either way, I’ll be there, and hopefully see you there too.
Cheers!
p.s. For those of you who signed up for the webinar on Sunday October 17th with me and Joost about the SEO of the SPI blog, Joost had to reschedule. Do you think I should cancel the existing webinar time slot, or keep the webinar open and we can chat about something else? Let me know what you think.
p.p.s. Someone commented on the last post asking how traveling to Vegas and handing out business cards and networking can count as “passive”. Well, for those of you new to this blog, The Smart Passive Income Blog and what I do around it is totally NOT passive. A blog is not passive because it takes a lot of upkeep to keep it going, and going to Vegas and networking is NOT passive as well for obvious reasons. But like a blog, going to events like this and networking can be used as a platform or a launching pad for something that can become a passive income stream. This blog is where I talk about the passive income streams that I have already created or are in the process of creating. I hope this clears things up a bit. Good question though, thanks for asking!
This is a guest post by Paul Cunningham of BloggingTeacher.com.
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