The movie on the flight home from BlogHerFood 2010 was Alice in Wonderland. Too tired to fully concentrate I watched snippits, mostly without sound, in between fits of dozing. The surreality of the movie did not escape me—in fact it was intensified by the start and stop action produced by my napping. Alice in her sometimes confusing world. Alice chasing a “dream”. Alice falling through a hole and coming out the other side—a place filled with big and small personalities, fear, hope, mystery, friends and victory. Alice returning home with a different view and a lifetime of opportunity.
Not so unlike this weekend at BlogHerFood.
I so much want to tell you about every bit of the conference—who we met, what we ate, what we learned. (Yes, it was robust, bigger than life, and tons of fun.) It would be volumes of riveting reading. But, you’re not going to give me the hours it would take to read about it, are you? Besides some very articulate insightful bloggers are going to share their experiences, too and you want to have time to see it from the myriad of perspectives that will emerge. And, you know bloggers—we all want to share.
There was an essence to the conference—a character that emerged. So here’s what I walked away with—a distillation of the days we all spent together. It’s a bit of a word cloud approach.
It’s all about the sharing. Feeding the community. Taking a little piece of the life we live and putting it out there so others can become a part of it.
You have a responsibility to your readers, your subjects and yourself to be true and ethical. To provide something that will work for them.
The world around us is beautiful. Take a minute to look at it from different angles. Take a step to the right or left and a different picture emerges. Pay attention to the highlights and shadows. Capture the moments.
Finding your voice—what makes you you—is a journey.
Each time you put yourself out there, you try something new—you fail, you succeed, you fail, you succeed—you’re on the journey. You’ve fallen through the hole and a new experience unfolds. When you go back through the hole and return home…a little bit of a different person will emerge.
A last comment about the word cloud that’s floating around inside my head as I decompress from the past few days. I met so many people I’ve talked to online over the past year and a half that I often felt dazed. My regret is not being able to talk to more people—or to spend more time with some people—while I had the chance to do so in person. I’ll openly admit to feeling overwhelmed and retreating to my comfort zone to recharge. Still, seeing online friends in person was incredible and I’m grateful for the time spent with each and everyone of them.
Like Alice we fell through a hole into another world for a few days. We’re all back now and I’m guessing we’re all just a little changed for the experience.
The tool used for the wordcloud is Wordle. So much fun! Try one.
