I'm ready to talk about BlogPhiladelphia. The unconference was all that I had hoped for and then some. Were there things that I would do differently next year, given the opportunity to organize a year two event? Absolutely. Key learnings are to be expected with any event.

The success of BlogPhiladelphia should be attributed to the people who participated. I still can't believe that 270 pre-registered and we had to turn people away. Even better, I am thrilled that more than 250 people showed up. The biggest measurement of success in my mind, is the community that was forged at the event. All of these people who knew "of" each other - or didn't - had the opportunity to meet in person and collaborate, share and learn. That was the real goal of BlogPhiladelphia. Sure, as an employee of GPTMC, I hope that you fall in love with Philadelphia and this region that I love and promote, and I hope that the community embraces our social media tools and content, like uwishunu.comand Sound About Philly. However, as a fellow geek, I hoped that people would connect and exchange ideas and ideally, make contacts that lead to more work or improve their business services with new knowledge.

Selfishly, the unconference was also an opportunity for me to catch up with and learn more from people who have been teaching me for years: Josh Hallett, Dave Parmet and Howard Greenstein. It was a chance for me to reconnect with some really smart people I've met along my path: Alicia Dorset, Dina Kaplan, Whitney Hoffman and Doug Bellenger. It was also a chance for me to learn more about topics that interested me from experts in those areas, like: Dave Coustan, Scott McNulty, Lisa Marshall, Chris O'Donnell, Valerie Maltoni,Tony Guido and Don Bain. Many thanks also to our diverse panelists: Neal Stewart, Caroline Marks, Vince Veneziani, Emily King and the infamousA.J. Daulerio. A fist-pumping "yeaaaaah" to city blogger and friend Joey Sweeney, who rocked the panel with his moderation, and with his awesome Philebrity team, hosted the perfect wrap party.

And that brings me to BlogPhiladelphia's not-so-secret ingredient, the man whose blog couldn't be more aptly named, Alex Hillman of Dangerously Awesome. For as much as the blog world can be filled with snark and feud after feud, the geek world is filled with talented people who are rapidly propelling forward and making industry names for themselves globally with their innovation and yet not getting caught up in the ego that consumes so many. Alex Hillman is one of those people and if you know Alex personally, you're nodding your head right now while reading this. Accolades and rewards (personal and financial) are truly deserving to this smart, gifted, helpful and energetic guy. We connected early in the planning stages of BlogPhilly (thanks, Brian Oberkirk !!) and Alex made the mistake of offering his FREE help with anything I need to make this unconference happen. He was experienced in the world of Barcamps, fresh off the high of SXSW and newly committed to staying in Philly versus moving to SF and joining the well-established (tech) establishment. Alex's passion re-ignited my passion for a project that I was dedicated to but now planning with limited resources that at times seemed overwhelming to accomplish in the less than 3 months we had to organize. Alex didn't just bring ideas (like the open-grid, which was awesome) but he was a tangible resource for me; he was a team member and then a partner.

And then there are all of the new friends I met BECAUSE of BlogPhilly: Roz, the P'unk Ave guys, Philly Tipguys, Marisa, John Bilotta and his bro Vince, David Speers, the insane and brilliant dudes at Viddler who are totally going to bury YouTubeWho? and more!
I could go on forever about the people who pitched in and helped with organizing - maybe that will be a part II to my wrap up?

I hope I touched on all of the core participants in BlogPhilly, if I haven't, I apologize.

Thank you to everyone who attended for making BlogPhiladelphia truly one of the highlights of my life both personally and professionally. The social media community in Philly and beyond is a remarkable community of talented and good people and I am proud to count myself as one of you. Thank you.

I'm on a blogging break. Blogphiladelphia took the blogger right out of me.

Not to mention, it's just so much easier to twitter than blog.

But I will be back. Until then, look at the "tooned" annie that stan at Toonamation created! What a talent and program this guys has - and he can "toon" entire videos. And this isn't that mac program - it's patented and more So, as someone at BlogPhilly pointed out, we could have him "toon" the spiderman movie so we can watch it the way we *wanted* to see it. I can't wait to work on a project with Toonamation!



(Are the bags under my eyes really that bad? I think I was just very, very tired;p)

Wow, the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. BlogPhiladelphia was a blur for me but I'm pleased with the outcome. Our session leaders were all excellent and the participation by attendees impressed me. The social media world has come such a long way since I entered the circuit a few years ago; marketers and citizen journalists are just so *smart* anymore. That's what really impressed me about BlogPhiladelphia. The last few social media "conferences" I attended in 2006 in NYC bored me. The speakers rattled off "tips" that were basics and even outdated. Often, I knew more then them but didn't have the opportunity to contribute.

At BlogPhiladelphia, the session leaders were smart and the participants were just as smart. It was stimulating just to be among the conversations.

More to come soon, but now, I have to head to the Wrap Party (Thanks Philebrity!)

Someone pass the codeine - I just gave birth. The labor involved may set a new world record, but we did it for YOU.

Now hurry up and register, if you haven't already. Just one week left to sign up!

I love that right after I publish a bot post, AIM adds 3 awesome bots to their client.
*~*
Hey, anyone out there an expert on widgets? Building them, where to find new plug-in's, different applications for them, etc? We need a widget guru to speak at BlogPhiladelphia. Give me a shout and if you have any demo's I can see - even better!

Great holiday weekend. I was able to restrain myself from opening my laptop and working - although I cheated and checked twitter nonstop (and a few emails) via my PDA. I'm officially addicted to twitter, which is an embarrassment because I personally trashed the service a few months ago on this very blog. I'm actually thinking about stopping my dodgeball, which isn't that big of a deal since I still subscribe to my NYC version and basically use it now to track my friends in NYC and reminisce about my former life. I wasn't able to get anyone in Philly hooked on Dodgeball - still haven't quite figured out why. This town certainly has the nightlife and the bar crowd.

Before I fled town on Thursday night for the shore, I popped into Junto , a local web/tech networking group, and spoke with the group about BlogPhiladelphia. It was a great opportunity to meet all the cool people whose blogs and twitters I read and respond to daily and to explain the "unconference." Some people were misled by the title "BlogPhiladelphia" and thought it was just a blogging event - I'll be sure to correct that on the site when I start blogging on the home page this week. We'll be covering all aspects of social media - new platforms, mobile applications, virtual communities and more. Definitely not just blogging.

I also met a lot of small business owners in the tech sector, like the guys at P'unk Ave who have the raddest office space in town that I've seen. Talk about being right in the middle of the action! In fact, now that I think of it, I think I'm going to ask Geoff if he'll host a mini-soiree there during the unconference. It's just too great of a spot! Nothing like blogging something first to pressure someone into agreement....muuuuwwwwwahahahaha;)

That's it for now. Back to work tomorrow.

Not a great day for Apple, according to my contact John Biggs over at CrunchGear.

I've worked with Ryan Block, the blogger who broke the story, a number of times and he has always reported fairly. I may not have been in love with his review of my clients, but it's always been fair. And the guy busts a move everyday to cover a million and one tech briefings and then file them all immediately.

Clearly, there's a new case study coming about all of this, documenting the very real power of email and social media for Corporate America today. I just hope whomever writes it comes to BlogPhiladelphia to present it.

Ryan, I already you sent the invite to you, but SERIOUSLY, you have to come speak.

I have so much to tell you guys! First, I have to thank Jack Dorsey at Twitter for featuring BlogPhiladelphia's Twitter group on Twitter's homepage! And if you don't believe me, look at the photo that Alex flickr'ed. My phone has been BLOWING up with Twitters and I have to take back my previous position on Twitter - it's been a life saver on keeping interested "unconference" attendees up to date on updates for the unconference while we develop the website.

In other news, uwishunu just launched the first webisode of the new original vlog series "Cheap Dates". Check it out!

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!



BlogPhiladelphia is here!