Having just attended SXSWi I am, more than ever, convinced of the power of attending conferences to help your blogging career.  They give you an opportunity to learn, network and generate new ideas for your blog.  I will definitely be attending blogworld in Las Vegas in October of this year, but am undecided about which others I want to head to.

In thinking about these opportunities, and of course the associated costs, its easy to miss the opportunities right on your doorstep.  You don’t have to travel half way across the country, or half way across the world to gain the benefits that conferences can bring you.

Using tools like Meetup.com you can find local gatherings of like minded bloggers looking to exchange ideas, lesson’s learned etc.  These are great opportunities for you to develop your network, create new relationships and discover that you aren’t alone in your pursuit of blogging riches.

Where will you go this year?

I went to SXSWi primarily to learn, to hear people who have been doing what I do for longer than I have and to share conversations with other attendees. I also felt that it would be an opportunity to network with some interesting people.

It was all of those things and a whole lot more. It was also completely exhausting, all that learning, walking miles through the conference center and meeting hundreds of people is tiring as well as being inspiring.

If I had to settle on just one thing that I learned at SXSWi it is this, and I think it is an important lesson to have learned for me and for all bloggers - Don’t Be Afraid To Ask!

Whilst at the conference I managed to network with some pretty influential people and on behalf of a Freelance program I am involved with managed to secure two large sponsors all by simply asking.

So that was my SXSWi lesson, have confidence, go out and ask people to help.

I attended an excellent session on blogging, in particular Dad bloggers at SXSWi.  It was a panel discussion moderated by Bonin Bough - Global Director, Digital & Social Media PepsiCo. The panel consisted of Chris Brogan of DadoMatic, Jory De Jardin of Blogher, Anne-Marie Nichols of thismamacooks.com and Brad Powell of DadLabs.

One of the most interesting questions asked of the panel was “How do bloggers get discovered?”. I think this is a question that occurs to many bloggers when they see the A list bloggers earning top dollars or being given great products to review.

The answers were unsurprising on the one hand but also a good wake up call for bloggers.  The first part was - hard work, write often, build an audience - sponsors want to know that the message a blogger writes will actually be seen by someone.

The rest is down to good old fashioned networking. Go to events, shake peoples hand, tell them what you do and ask them if you can get sponsorship.  Bonin says he rarely receives requests directly from bloggers which really surprises him.

Who would you like to sponsor your blog?

So I have managed to make it to day 3 of 5 for SXSWi. So far my overall experience has been extremely positive. I have walked miles each day (the Austin Convention Center is huge). I have been overwhelmed at times with the amount of information, at bumping into people I have chatted with via twitter for, in some cases, over a year and then finally meeting them.

I have managed to meet some of the “Internet Famous”, all of whom are much more human than you would think and much less impressed with their own Internet fame than those people who make such a big deal out of it.

One person I was very pleased to be able to get a few moments to say hi to was Brian Clark who runs the CopyBlogger blog. If you haven’t read it I would strongly recommend adding it to your list or your RSS feed. He provides great advice to anyone who earns their living by the written word and especially those who write for the online world.

So far what I have learned is accept the fact you will only attend about half the sessions you originally planned on and that is ok. Keep your eyes open when walking the halls you never know who you will bump into. Keep your ears open, you never know what great conversations you will over hear.  Be ready to shake hands a lot and make new friends. Don’t be surprised when someone asks you to do an interview on camera (happened twice so far). Be prepared to be a whole lot more tired than you thought you would be, whilst it is a lot of fun I have returned home each night completely exhausted.

I was fortunate enough to be able to get access to the bloggers lounge at SXSWi. This is a closed off area at the conference where bloggers can come and hang out, write or broadcast and generally mingle.

There were podcasters, video bloggers, and regular bloggers all working along side each other.  A dizzying array of devices being used, laptops, palmtops, professional mixing desks, professional cameras, flip mino video cameras and even, pen and paper!

It was a great opportunity to meet some of my personal favorites like Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund, and others whose blogs I have been reading for a long time.  What was very interesting was to watch the interactions between everyone. Some were head down typing away, others chatting and greeting as new people arrived in the lounge.  The overall buzz was high energy and highly creative. It really validated a personal sense of being a blogger and being in such great company.

My day one sessions consisted of “How To Rawk SXSW” & “How To Scam Anyone”.

The first session was a panel consisting of veterans of SXSW, one of whom had been attending for 10 years and the newest who had been attending for three years. I was hopeful that they would impart wisdom that would prove useful for a noob who hadn’t been before.

The session started with a great presentation accompanied by rock music, it boded well for what I envisioned as a high energy session.  Unfortunately the energy lasted about the same time as a 2 year old laptop battery (ten minutes maybe).  It quickly deteriorated into just a bunch of people who knew each other reminiscing about past SXSW’s that they had been too. About how “back in the day..” it was this or it was that and how it isn’t that anymore.

They quickly lost the crowd and people started to leave after about 20 mins into the session. It was a shame, it was definitely a wasted opportunity for the organizers to actually provide some useful hints and tips for new attendees.

The second session was run by Brian Brushwood, he was awesome! A complete counterpoint to the first session, his presentation was interactive (it is SXSW INTERACTIVE after all), fast paced funny and actually very informative. Shrouded in the entertainment of slight of hand magic, he covered the topic of Social Engineering and manipulation. Talking about Forced Action Paths, expected responses and how to get out of speeding tickets or get free drinks.  The applicability of this to the online world is extremely relevant and he helped pull the covers off how spammers work.

You can see Brian’s Scam School videos here.

No, not another post listing all the wonderful speakers at the conference, but my experience on the first day of South By Southwest Interactive - lines for everything!

I arrived at the Austin Conventon Center with what I thought was plenty of time to park the car and get into my first session. That was a mistake. I lined up with all the other drivers to get into the parking lot, finally it was my turn to pay, except that whilst the car in front of me paid and drove up the ramp, the attendent left their booth and flagged me forward and told me the parking lot was now full and I would have to turn around and leave!

This was followed by 15 minutes of driving around the block to find another parking lot - fortunately I found one only a couple of blocks away.  So having parked the car I headed back to the convention center, only to be greeted by one of the longest lines I have ever seen. I confirmed with a helper that this was in fact the line for the people who had already pre-registered, yes I was told it was.  So 50 minutes later I had finally progressed to the front of the line - except it wasn’t it was the front of the downstairs portion of the line. Next was to line up to use the escalator to go up to floors to the badge pickup. Finally I was allowed upstairs to be met with, yes you guessed it another line. 15 minutes later and I was standing in front of the badge pickup desk confirming my details, those confirmed, I was told to go and “wait in line” for my badge to be brought out. Ten minutes of waiting produced my badge so now off to get my conference bag and directory. Back down stairs past all the people still in line, I over hear one of the assistants telling someone that the end of the line is now outside the building (its raining out there) guess my wait indoors wasnt so bad.

Bag pickup, is of course at the end of another line - this one not so long, only about 5 minutes. I pick up my directory and bag. I am cautioned that the directory will cost me $40 if I lose it - yikes, best I don’t lose it then. The schwag bag contains some odd things. A $20 camera bag from Crumpler (very nice), an iPod sock from Adobe (very strange) and a bunch of magazines (very wasteful).

So that was my Lineup experience. More from the sessions coming.

Recently I posted about optimizing your blog for mobile devices it got me thinking about how many bloggers use those same devices or something similar to write their blogs.

As I mentioned yesterday I will be attending SXSWi this weekend, and I will be blogging about the sessions that I attend. I will also be on twitter whilst in the sessions. I will have my laptop with me and will no doubt at the very least be putting together outlines for my posts in between sessions.

I am sure that some of the bloggers attending will be using smartphones, or netbooks to update their blogs practically live from the events. I’m not sure I am ready to go that far yet but I can see the attraction of it.

Do you blog from anywhere other than your desk?