The 2010 Americas Wine Bloggers Conference is nigh upon us (June 25-27 in Walla Walla, WA), and I’m getting excited to attend (despite the major pain in the ass it is going to be for me to even get to Walla Walla from Philly in the first place).
There’s a great deal to be excited about in this case – the sponsors and participating wineries will allow us wine bloggin’ types to get a deeper dive into the WA wine scene; the lovable madness of the live wine blogging “speed tasting” sessions is back (in an expanded format); friend of the Dude and Wine Enthusiast West Coast editor Steve Heimoff will be delivering the keynote; last, but most importantly, there’s the opportunity to meet with friends, old and new.
This year’s conference will be a bit more involved for me than in the past (in other words, I have to be sober on Friday) as I’ve been asked to sit (with Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape and RJ Hilgers of RJ’s Wine Blog) on the “About Wine Blogging” Breakout Session panel, specifically for the “Advanced Bloggers” session.
Which is kind of odd for me, because otherwise that was the session that I’d planned on attending.
I’m totally cool with this – and in fact I’d told the WBC organizers to feel free to consider me to help out or sit in on a panel (though I’d imagined then that it would have been the “Novice Bloggers” track or something similar) because I really wanted to try to give something back to WBC and to other bloggers this year, if I could.
I know that a lot of other wine bloggers read 1WineDude.com, and I’m stoked to go to Walla Walla to meet / catch-up with you, and if there was any chance that I could help make the experience cooler for you (outside of spending my hard-earned cash on you, of course) then I really wanted to be a part of that somehow. I also had a great time sitting on the Social Media / Monetization panel at the 2010 Professional Wine Writers Symposium, and so I thought I would potentially be bringing some legitimate and useful panel experience to the mix.
But now… the pressure’s on, and I’m hoping that YOU can help ME…
According to the WBC10 website, here’s the brief skinny (skinny skinny?) on the Advanced Bloggers session:
“Advanced Bloggers will discuss high-level topics such as dealing with burnout, measuring your visitor statistics, interviewing subjects, and more.”
It’s the “and more” part that I want to discuss. I’d like to know what YOU want to discuss if you’re a wine blogger who will be at WBC 2010 and are planning on attending the Advanced Bloggers session.
I’ve got NO interest whatsoever in talking about topics that you potentially don’t give a crap about, so tell me what you do give a crap about so we can discuss those topics instead. Assuming they’re related to wine blogging, that is (if you’ve got an obsession with the changing size of Pamela Anderson’s boobs, well that’s great and we can talk about that over a bottle or two but I’d rather not go there during the panel).
I’ve got some ideas, of course, and I’ve already seen a lot of interest in the topic of avoiding burnout, but let’s make sure the stuff is as useful as possible for you.
So let’s hear it – whaddya wanna talk about?
Cheers!
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