My business partner and I attended BlogWorld 2008 in Las Vegas recently. We had not planned this event in our schedule, but thanks to fellow blogger and Twitter friend, Rosina Rothman of BabyFriendlyLA, for bringing it to my attention.

In researching the events and reviewing the list of presenters, I was intrigued. The list was a whos who, all energetic, passionate people in their fields of expertise, early adopters, already embracing new media.

A little planning and research and the tone was set that this would be a great event.

The excitement began to mount the day prior to leaving for Las Vegas, as many attendees had already arrived and were preparing for a full Friday session. Not to mention the unexpected Twitter exchange with @CirqueLasVegas, who graciously set us up with complimentary tickets to Cirque’s Beatles Love Show on Saturday night! One of my best Twitter experiences yet!

The days of planning we over and we are off to the airport. We began to feel part of the event immediately upon arrival to the airport. We were both following Twitter and the official code for the event, @BWE08. There were photos via TwitPic, party announcements, weather information and tweeps announcing departures, arrivals and discussions on the sessions that were already in progress. How nice, we were waiting to departure from Orange County airport, yet we were already feeling part of the event in Las Vegas. Thanks Twitter!

We arrived in Las Vegas on Friday afternoon, checked in and immediately launched the Blogworld08 website for the latest news. Then I checked my RSS feeds and bloggers were already posting about Friday sessions, while still present at the session. I love technology.

We decided to walk around our hotel, play a few games, and headed to the Blue Man Group to get our tickets for the Friday night show, compliments of BlogWorld! Special thanks to Noel Watson, the Sales Manager of the BMG, for her help and tour of their offices earlier in the afternoon.

Prior to heading down to the show, I sent a Tweet asking if anyone was up to a Blue Man Show Tweetup. Time was tight, so no pre-tweet up, but that didn’t stop us from Tweeting in route and in the venue. We soon found we were in the same row as @onetake and @gototchris, only the band separated us. A very nice usher moved us to be near our BlogWorld friends, a very nice gesture. To our surprise, these two also live in Orange County, California. What a small world.

The Show was fabulous, as well as the company and the post Tweet Up too, where we finally met @danportnoy, after tweeting for months on Twitter and speaking on the phone. Dan and his work is a story in and of itself, working with non profits. Thank you to @cherylsmith999 for the introduction.

Technology gave a wider eyes view of the actual conference and all of the activities. People were sending live streaming, tweeting, sending photos to TwitPic and Flickr and although we were not able to be everywhere, we felt connected to the other events around town the entire weekend. How I appreciate those hashtags #bwe08.

On Saturday, as the sun rose, so did the Bloggers. It was apparent by the good morning tweets on Twitter. Even though we were in different hotels, spread around the city, we were enjoying breakfast and coffee together. Normally, this morning ritual wouldn’t be unique, but on this morning we were all in the same town and time zone, all headed to the same event. That was a unique twist.

I sent out a Tweet “Watched the sun come up over Vegas. Getting ready for BlogWorld. Many great presenters, now is decision time.” I smiled when I got a response from Dave Taylor, “me! me! come to my SEO for bloggers workshop this afternoon! :-)” Now how could we refuse such a cheery early morning invitation?

Upon arriving we could see bloggers carrying all their techno gadgets. They were equipped with video cams, smart phones, iPods, voice recorders and cameras. Yes, we are in the right place.

We attended two back to back seminars on Podcasting. The best part of these presentations was watching the tweets from the Twitter presentation with Laura Fitton, across the hall. That presentation caused much discussion on Twitter and how I longed to be sitting in that room. Many thanks to those in the “Twitter: Building the Connections that Drive Traffic” presentation for keeping those of us not in attendance, up to date throughout the presentation.

Next, we took Dave Taylor up on his early morning tweet and attended “Ten Things You Need to Know About Search Engines”. A topic of interest for me over the last few years and his presentation was not a disappointment.

He presented key information to people looking to take advantage of SEO on their sites. One specific topic was of great interest to me, adding blogrolls to your blog. I had often wondered what the benefit was to listing which blogs we each read? In my case the list would be ever changing as I discover great new sources every day, as would the lists of the other bloggers that contribute to our site.

What are the benefits? Looking for a SEO stand point, there is none. Surprised? I believe many were, but then he asked the question “Why spend your valuable time creating content and to give visitors a list of reasons to leave your site?” That makes sense from a SEO stand point. What is the reason so many people have a Blogroll? What is the purpose of listing out the other blogs you read and does anyone else really care?

His presentation contained a lot of valuable information. What did we learn? Let’s just say after Dave’s presentation, we have several things to redesign, and dedicate more time reading Dave Taylors Blog. Did I mention Dave gives free tech support?

Hungry, we headed over to the Palazzolas, which luckily for us was attached to our hotel and we were lucky enough to be guests at Sushi Samba’s. We enjoyed the Cuban sushi creations and were entertained as they prepared for their grand opening party that very evening.

Saturday night and time to enjoy the Cirque’s Beatles Love Show that @CirqueLasVegas arranged for us, compliments of the marketing team and thanks to Twitter. Thanks to Dave Taylor for suggesting the show! I was sitting right there and how he remembered all of these details I am not sure, but he did a great job in his post. The show was fantastic, but at midnight, back to the hotel to rest up for Sunday. Still had many people to meet and spend time in the Expo with exhibitors.

Sunday we decided to attend one presentation and then spend some time in the Expo. We decided on “My blog is a Business?”, which did a brief presentation and took questions from the audience. I actually enjoyed the questions, because every individual came from a different perspective, each having different interests. One particular question kept arising, monetization.

We didn’t create our blog with monetization in mind, did we? No, but after listening to this presentation, in fact that is what we are doing is having it as an extension of our eLearning Development. Chris Brogan said an interesting thing, if we were to look at his blog, there is a plan when he writes posts. He is indirectly giving us messages to his knowledge, experience and his value. That is why we are at BlogWorld, just more food for thought in our planning and direction.

The panel also continued to express, the key is doing what you are passionate about. If you work hard at making it good, quality content and monetization will come. Great advice, hands down. When I decided to make a drastic change and do things that I loved, although initially out of my comfort zone, well worth it because great things begin to happen when you follow passion.

Now for the Expo and what I view as shopping! Someone has to do it! We talked to many great exhibitors, some we knew, some we just met. We will be writing more about these great new finds in future postings.

However, I never found a Twitter shirt that I have been longing for, but what I did find came straight from Twitter and was even better. I saw a tweet from @coachdeb that she was at the i360 booth and signing pre-release copies of Twitter Revolution. Let me just say, @coachdeb is exactly like she is on Twitter. She and @warrenwhitlock were both nice enough to sign the book and pose for photos. Read the book on the way back on the plane, great book, another post coming about this great gem.

Will we attend in BlogWorld 2009? You bet! Would we do anything differently? Yes. We did many things right in researching in advance, but after this wonderful experience it would do a few additional things to prepare for all future events.

• Participate in many more hosted events, to really take advantage of time with people face to face, one on one.
• Research the speakers and their presentations, to ensure we are getting the most out of each presentation, to meet our individual needs.
• Take more photos of the event and friends to share with those that don’t attend, as well as our own memories of the events.
• Pack video equipment or bring one of our videographers, to tape planned interviews.
• Research product and service providers and make time for those specific to our interests.

Thank you again to fellow blogger, Rosina Rothman, of BabyFriendlyLA, I hope you make it next year!