INQUIRY - a seeking or request for truth, information, or knowledge; study, scrutiny, exploration. [Inquiry Week starts here. Click for this week's Bliss Initiatives.]
I had a great day at Bloggy Boot Camp yesterday, made possible in part by knowing that the blog was in the good hands of Samsaric Warrior. Wasn't that a great guest post on seeking happiness?!! Kristen the Goat commented that she would be bookmarking the post. A really great idea! Thank you again Michael.
The bacon part of this post will be revealed soon.
Spending the day with 120 fellow bloggers in one of the most picturesque rooms with a view in San Francisco was really spectacular. The Westin St. Francis was terrific, even though they couldn't seem to get the temperature under control. We were all freezing the whole time. I was really impressed with all the speakers. Each one had something worth hearing and without exception will positively impact the future of my blogging!
Tiffany, the event organizer, was charming and so pretty! * I found out she is a camp director in her life away from blogging and her skills transferred perfectly to the event yesterday. The program required that all 120 of us change seats at least 7 times and the entire thing was done flawlessly. I really enjoyed the chance to meet the other bloggers although the time was really short, we barely had time to exchange business cards between speakers, I liked how the event was organized.
[* visit my Bloggy Boot co-Campers who joined the hop (towards the bottom of this post) or follow #bloggybootcamp on twitter and I think you'll see a recurring "Tiffany is so pretty" theme!]
I may have made a mistake not attending the cocktail party, which was a more social mingling type of event, but with a three year old at home I thought I should head on back. As it turns out, the urgency I felt was not duplicated by my daughter who had this conversation with her Daddy following my call to say I was at home.
They were in the car heading to the store and Daddy said, "Mommy's home now."
Sweets says, "I still want to go to the park."
Daddy to Sweets, "Isn't that like throwing mommy under the bus?"
She thinks about it, "NO! It is only a LITTLE BIT throwing her under the bus. Let's go to the park!"
If the party had been scheduled immediately following the Boot Camp's conclusion I would have attended but waiting two hours and then going really didn't work for me as a local attendee of the event.
It would be impossible to put in one post all of the things I learned and or am prompted to do, and in fact we were repeatedly told NOT to go out and try to implement everything we heard all at once, but here are three things I am taking on immediately:
- I am BUYING all of the domain names associated with my blog and all of our family names. I don't know what/or if my daughter will want or need a .com landing page when she is "of age" -- who knows what NEW technology will be the rage then. But for $10/year it is worth protecting and having her "brand" secure
- I am going to go through all of my blog posts and check to see that I received permission to use ALL of the photo's I have snatched from Google Images (I think I have done so about 75% of the time). I have gotten sloppy and have allowed my self imposed time constraints to post "right away" to encourage not waiting for permission before posting... you know know the old it is easier to ask forgiveness later adage... Anyway, it is just sloppy and I am restoring my integrity in the case of my past posts and I won't be posting photos without PRIOR permission going forward! (This does mean today's post is heading to the presses without photos.)
- Get back to the basics and write posts that I love. When I started this blog I was so inspired about the project and had so much to say it was simple and very enjoyable to write a post everyday. Once all the logistics were shared (which I have to admit an unnatural fascination for) it really wasn't necessary to post EVERY day but I still felt compelled to do so, causing me to put out some less then stellar material. A blog isn't a pulitzer prize winning novel and I don't promise brilliance in every post going forward but I'm going on the theory that LESS may actually be more and intend on producing more thought provoking and thoughtful material.
I have a little notebook with a ton of other ideas so this conversation is certainly not over. If you are interested in hearing more about the event, which was a stellar way to conclude my Inquiry week please check out this recap from one event topic How to Make Money Online Without Selling Your Soul from the Sits Girls site and/or hop on over and visit these other Boot Campers who will certainly be sharing their perspectives this week too! (If you attended and haven't joined the hop please do!!)
The Bacon is revealed after the hop:
If you write any Boot Camp related posts, stop by Everyday Mommy and join that hop too!
All in all the event was a terrific end to my week of inquiry. I still have lots of fun discoveries at the participant bloggy boot campers blogs and twitter parties and a host of Social Media fun ahead of me but I'm certain what I learned this week will keep the flood of Inquiry going. I am awarding myself an 8 out of 10 for the week and Five Bliss Boosts.
Oh, now to get to the bacon part, since I'm sure you are wondering... Another thing we learned at Boot Camp regarding SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was that a copious use of the word Bacon was driving traffic these days. So not to be left out and for YOUR Bacon viewing pleasure I offer the following: Bacon Explosion... five layers of bacon'y goodness! YUM... heart attacks not withstanding. (Don't worry I will not be converting this to the EverydayBacon blog. I have however, purchased the EverydayBacon.com domain.)
How was your week of Inquiry?
Next Post: Community Week gets started