Morning Agenda

9 a.m. Blogging Panel

10 a.m. IRL Networking

10:30 a.m.: Breakout session #1

11:15 a.m. Breakout session #2

Noon: Break for Lunch

After lunch, the hands-on stuff begins. Find out more on Dave’s blog.

Blogging Panel – 9 a.m.

The day will begin with all speakers hosting a blogging panel, and the general subject will be the blogging revolution. Each speaker will introduce themselves and speak briefly on that subject and how they believe blogging has changed the way we write, communicate and receive information. Then the floor will open to questions from the audience. The idea behind this is to be sure the audience gets a chance to hear and interact with every speaker.

Breakout Session #1 – 10:30 a.m.

You can choose one session below to attend:

Track 1 – Promoting Your Blog Through Social Media

When it comes to promoting your blog, social media can be a highly effective means of increasing your reader base. But, there is a right way and a wrong way to use every service. The right way can grow your traffic and enhance your brand – the wrong way will have people thinking you’re a spammer and dismissing everything you write. In this session, we’ll tackle some of the dos and don’ts of five forms of social media: blogging, microblogging, forums, social networking and social bookmarking.

Speaker’s bio: Bio: Patrick O’Keefe is a writer, web developer, and community administrator. He is the founder and owner of the iFroggy Network and the author of “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online forums, communities and social spaces. He writes for multiple blogs, including YanksBlog.com, ManagingCommunities.com, and Bad Boy Blog.com, and maintains a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

Track 2 – Finding your Voice, Blogging your Heart

This session will be a discussion (with hand-outs!) on finding and refining your blog voice. Part of our goal will be to examine why we blog, what we want our blog to reflect about us, how to do it well, and how to get what we really want from blogging (once we’ve figured that out). Developing a consistent blogging voice will help you communicate more effectively, gain readership, and win readers over to your point of view.

Speaker’s Bio: Anne Fitten Glenn has been blogging about parenting, beer, politics, books, and other topics at edgymama.com for almost four years. She writes a weekly parenting column, also titled Edgy Mama, for Asheville, N.C.’s alternative newsweekly, Mountain Xpress and a weekly business profile for the Asheville Citizen-Times. As a journalist, photographer, and educator, she has closely watched the media change and evolve during her 22-year career. Glenn spends her free time mothering two kids, one husband, two marmalade cats, and one Dorkie Poo mutt. She rarely gets enough exercise, chocolate, sleep or beer.

Track 3: Creating Online Communities or Your Site is Not a Billboard

Communities are a dynamic asset that can be encouraged with positive interaction and transparency. Cultivating conversation both on and offsite creates interaction and a feeling of investment between the author and audience. Methods and guidelines for developing communities will be discussed.

Speaker’s Bio: Heather Solos is co-author of Home-Ec101.com and recently launched LowcountryBloggers.com with the help of Daniel Tennant. LowcountryBloggers.com is a site dedicated to promoting community and interaction between Charleston area bloggers.

Breakout Session #2 – 11:15 a.m.

Choose one of the following tracks:

Track 1: Seo for Bloggers

No, SEO isn’t a dirty word. Yes, you really do need to know at least a little about if you want to find success in the blogosphere. Guess what? It isn’t that scary or even that hard. Get a crash course in the basics of driving search engine traffic to your web site, from simple tactics while you write to basic plugins that can make a huge difference in your traffic. Best of all, you can still write for people while appeasing the Google gods.

Speaker bio: Kelby Carr is a freelance writer, SEO expert, foodie, social networking chick, travel junkie and former biz-cops-political-investigative newspaper journalist turned hardcore mommy blogger. She is the publisher of a network of parenting web sites. She’s been geeking it out on computers since the age of 10 (and you had to use an audio tape to run software), and web publishing and networking since the early 1990s (when she had to create pages from code in Notepad). She is also the host of the morning session.

Track 2: Hyper-Local Reporting with Multimedia

Jared Smith will demonstrate how he makes Charleston Weather, a live and interactive weather show for Charleston, SC residents during times of severe weather, a reality using little more than ustream.tv, a webcam, and a couple free or low-cost tools.  The techniques Jared uses aren’t just limited to weather broadcasts, either — any genre of webcast can benefit from his techniques and ideas.  All you need to bring is an appetite for multimedia and your own creativity to pull it all together.

Speaker’s Bio: Jared Smith is a 20-something web developer and weather nut in Charleston, SC.  Jared has been blogging since 2000 (age 15) on a variety of topics, but he is most recently known for his efforts in blogging and reporting tropical and other severe weather that affects the Charleston area, beginning with a live blog of Tropical Storm Ernesto in 2006 as it took aim on the Lowcountry, and continuing into 2008, when Tropical Storms Fay and Hanna posed a threat to the region.  In times of severe weather, Jared hosts Charleston Weather, an interactive weather show complete with real-time chat and live radar.  He is in the process of launching a standalone weather blog to compliment the show at charlestonwx.com, which is scheduled to go live full-time in 2009.

Track 3: Speaker Selected, but Still Finalizing Session Theme

Rest of the Day’s Conference

After we break for lunch, the day is far from over. Get down to real nuts and bolts learning with Dave Slusher’s hands-on sessions.

How to Attend

So if you are interested in going, you can either RSVP at the Facebook event page or comment below. We look forward to seeing you there! Also be sure to attend the ConvergeSouth conference the day before at the same location (and I am a speaker, so stop by and say hello!), and be sure to register for that separately.

Get Your Conference Badge

OK, so I threw these together. They suck. Hey, I’m pressed on time and I don’t have Photoshop that I’m used to. But if you’d like to have a badge, feel free. Also feel free to create your own less sucky badge and use it instead.

Get the code:

<a href="http://kelbycarr.com/independent-blogger-conference-greensboro"><img src="http://kelbycarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/greensboro-speaker.jpg" alt="" /></a>

Get the code:

<a href="http://kelbycarr.com/independent-blogger-conference-greensboro"><img src="http://kelbycarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/greensboro-attendee.jpg" alt="" /></a>

If you would like to attend, please RSVP on Facebook or comment below! Also be sure to use the Facebook event page to invite your blogger friends you think might be interested.

Here is the official announcement:

BlogHer cancelled the southeast “road show” scheduled for Saturday, October 18, 2008. In its place, there are some independent events scheduled that may interest you. These are not ConvergeSouth events. They will take place at NC A&T State University in the General Classroom Building (GBC).

Morning: Connect & Create

The day after ConvergeSouth, there will be a free half-day “connecting and creating” session focusing to help bloggers take their sites to the next level. The first half of day, the connect and create portion, will focus on marketing, networking, and encouraging conversations and interaction on blogs.

The day will begin with a panel of expert bloggers who will speak about the blogging revolution, and each offer their own brief statement on how to make a blog succeed. It will provide bloggers an opportunity not only to hear these bloggers speak, but to ask questions.

Afterwards, the panelists will head breakout sessions on a variety of topics. These haven’t been finalized yet, but we anticipate topics such as bloggers and social networking, promoting your blog, encouraging comments on your blog, and making money with your blog. If you are interested in speaking at the morning connect session, contact Kelby Carr at kelby@typeamom.net.

Afternoon: Hands-on Workshops

In the afternoon, we will present a series of hands on workshops. These are directed towards anyone who has an interest in pursuing some form of social media but has hit a technical hurdle. Volunteers will be available for one on one help in the mechanics of getting started in any aspect. These include starting a blog, using social networking software (Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed et al), creating and publishing audio or video podcasts and many other topics.

Interested attendees are requested to bring whatever equipment they might have (laptops, cameras or camcorders, microphones, etc) and a vision of what they want to achieve, and our volunteers will take what you have and make it work for you. Everyone that walks in with a question should walk out with an idea where to proceed, resources for more information and the ability to take the next step.

The workshop sessions will be informal and all questions are welcome at any time. Within that time period there will be demonstrations of specific tasks. A Charlestonian who does internet weather broadcasts from his home will present how he duplicates the Weather Channel with no resources. There will be demonstrations on how to record Skype conversations for interviews, how to do green screen video compositing and many other topics.

To request a specific demonstration, to volunteer to present or mentor in the workshops or for more information, email dslusher@gmail.com. We hope with these sessions to reach the Uplifter ideal: “Bring What You Have; Teach What You Know; Learn What You Need.”