Monday, May 6, 2013

Blog Paws wrap up....

the mom here again - back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow - haha

Triscuit was a rock star. The first hour in the car she was  kind of whiny about being in the travel crate in the back of the Beetle, but she settled in and it was all good. Took about 7 hours with stops but no major traffic - just a few sections of the dread orange cones.

We roomed with Connie and Odilia from Tails from the Foster Kittens. Wednesday night was a different hotel (we had to sneak them in) and then Thursday over to the Sheraton for the event. I will say that staying on site is a good idea.

I got to meet some great people. I could make a list but I don't want to leave anyone off. Just please know that I LOVED meeting all of you. Putting names to faces to blogs as well as meeting new people.

Triscuit went to most of the seminars with me and slept through them all. I learned to sit at a table so I could put my elbows up and let her sleep on my arm.

As for the conference itself, it was.....ok. Being a self confessed techno-dork, a lot of the stuff went over my head. They offered a cat or dog swag bag, but the cat bag was still mostly dog stuff. I wish there had been longer sessions with smaller classes you could sign up for and get some better understanding of things. You just can't get into may details about ANY topic in an hour. The tech sessions were over my head and I didn't attend anything Saturday morning since nothing appealed to me.

That being said, I attended great sessions Thursday by Robin from Covered in Cat Hair about how she decided to open her rescue to allow kids from her town of Newtown CT into her home to visit her foster kittens and give them a reason to smile again. The second session was by Sybil Stershic annd Kristin Elliott about Strengthening your Brand and Marketing. Lots of great info that I am hoping to pass on to the rescue and to Chrystal.

Friday morning was another bust for sessions, but Friday afternoon there was a great session about Pet Welfare in America sponsored by Purina and Adopt A Pet. I was going to stay for the second session about social media and being an advocate, but Triscuit woke up and I figured an awake lively kitten would be WAY to distracting.

I do wish they had more things geared toward cats. I wish they had TOLD us what meals were included and not. I wish that there were more sessions geared toward learning and impacting lives and not just the brief overview that you can get in an hour.

I love meeting new friend and friends we have known online for a while. But I will be honest - if I had to decide RIGHT NOW if I were going to the conference next year, the answer would be no. The cost wasn't cheap between ticket, hotel, food and travel. And while I got some good contacts out of it, I am just not enough of an outgoing people person to be able to schmooze....I took refuge a few times up in the room.

So - overall score - 2.5 paws out of 5.

5 comments:

  1. My human was not thrilled with this year's BlogPaws either. As you know, she handed the "goodie" bag right back when she saw it was all useless dog stuff. And she was not impressed with most of the sessions she attended either. But she LOVED hanging out with everybody! She's sort of socially backwards herself, but at BlogPaws, she was not among strangers, even if, like you, she had not met them before. I do hope they are better in the future - I don't want to send my human off to conferences where the benefits aren't worth the cost and effort.

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  2. That's a little disappointing about the swag bags. But it must have been really lovely meeting up with other bloggers.

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  3. So sorry to hear - I am thinking of going next year since it's close to me...hmmmm

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  4. The mom says she enjoyed meeting in person you and all the other cat bloggers. She agrees that there were some things about the conference that could be done better, but she did learn a couple of things. But overall, meeting the others was the best part and she says she might do it again next year only because there are so many other bloggers who weren't there this year who say they may be there next year...and the mom wants to meet them too. And it's in Vegas, baby!!! :)

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  5. That's a pretty good (and honest) write up! Thanks! :) The impression I got from facebook and twitter is that the best part was meeting other cat bloggers!

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