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Blog Indiana’s Big Problem

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Randy Clark

Blog Indiana’s Big Problem

The Blog Indiana 2012 Social Media & Blogging Con­fer­ence was held last week, August 9th–10th. TKO was honored to, once again, be a sponsor, and I was priv­i­leged to be a part of the con­fer­ence, pre­sent­ing on something near and dear to my heart — rec­i­p­ro­cal net­work­ing. I want to thank everyone who attended my pre­sen­ta­tion, and espe­cially all my friends who helped. BIN is a place to learn, share, and network. It’s a place to catch up with old friends (ok, I’m the oldest), and meet new friends.

It was a blast watching super presenter Allison Carter’s evolution, Kevin Mullett rise to a new level of rant, Pamela Reilly share many valuable tools, Erik Deckers dissect humor (and spit his coffee when I shared an example using his formula), Robby Slaughter engaging his audience, and Ryan Brock telling us to shut off our inner filters. It was exciting, it was invig­o­rat­ing… it was inspirational.

Lorraine Ball shared from her heart, Muhammad Yasin blew us all away tweeting from his iPhone as he presented, and Kenan Farrell, in his calm tone, told us how to avoid potential lia­bil­i­ties. Doug Karr gave us so many ideas, the questions went on for 20 minutes. Nobody wanted to leave. And these are only the pre­sen­ta­tions I attended!

And The Problem Is…

At Blog Indiana, three sessions are scheduled simul­ta­ne­ously; choosing which to attend can be a challenge. For example, how could anyone choose between Kenan, Kevin, and Pamela? I didn’t. I flitted between all three — certainly missing some important content from each, but filling a page of notes anyway.

I wanted to learn about pod­cast­ing from Dave Woodson, but he was opposite Muhammad. My reasoning for choosing Muhammad’s pre­sen­ta­tion? TKO doesn’t podcast and Muhammad’s talk on social promotion had more of a bearing on our orga­ni­za­tion. I asked Sara Croft’s and Nathan Hand’s for­give­ness before their pre­sen­ta­tion; I hear it was big fun, but I needed to learn from Lorraine about how she stopped BEING her brand.

I missed my friend Jon Bausman. Also Michael Reynolds, and Lindsay Manfredi (how could I do that to a fellow musician?), Jeremy Williams, and Chad Richards — you get the idea. There were too many great pre­sen­ta­tions to choose from. I guess if a con­fer­ence is to have a problem — this is the one to have. I recommend any indi­vid­ual, business, or orga­ni­za­tion with a blog, website, or social media presence to attend the next Blog Indiana Con­fer­ence. Which sessions would you have picked?

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About Randy Clark

Randy Clark is the Director of Communications at TKO Graphix, where he regularly blogs for TKO's Brandwire. Randy is passionate about social media, leadership development, and flower gardening. He is a beer geek and, on weekends, he fronts the rock band, Under The Radar. He is the proud father of one educator, one principal, has four amazing grandchildren, and a public speaker wife who puts up with him. His twitter handle is: @randyclarktko, Facebook: Randy Clarktko, Google+: Randy Clark on G+
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  • http://welfle.com/ Andy Welfle

    I attended and it was great! I agree that the three simul­ta­ne­ous sessions were hard to choose between. I’d love to see some kind of suggested “track” of sessions. That way, depending on your need and your career, you can have guidance choosing what’s relevant to you and your needs. An online community manager, for example, can choose a track that would include Kevin’s pre­sen­ta­tion, Lorraine’s pre­sen­ta­tion and Muhammad’s pre­sen­ta­tion, while a straight-up blogger could choose Jame’s, Ryan’s, Erik’s and so on. There could be one for SEO spe­cial­ists, for agencies, writers, pho­tog­ra­phers, etc. It’s a bit more work in the orga­ni­za­tion of the event and the sched­ul­ing of workshops, but it might help someone who (like me) struggled to pick the most relevant workshop for my needs.

    • Randy Clark

      Andy –Tracks. What a great idea. I’d also love to hold a pre-event and share a few net­work­ing ideas before it begins, including adopt a rookie where a first year attendee is mentored by a multiple year participant.

  • http://www.kevinmullett.com Kevin Mullett

    Thanks for the shout out, the comments, and at least catching some of my pre­sen­ta­tion this year. (Poking fun at Randy for last year.) I would described this years Blog Indiana as being filled with the best content of the three I have attended, and the prior three were not bad at all.

    • Randy Clark

      Wait.
      Wait. Wait. Hold on a minute. I DID attend your pre­sen­ta­tion last year with
      about 50 others who happened to raid…I mean arrive at your pre­sen­ta­tion a bit
      late. Which I must say you handled impec­ca­bly. It was great this year wasn’t it?
      You know I kinda sorta mentioned to Sean and Noah that a mid year Northern
      Indiana BIN event would be a great idea.

  • http://twitter.com/LmRichardt Lindsey Richardt

    It was very tough to pick between the three different seminars. Blog Indiana has very creative, intel­li­gent people speak, and I wanted to learn from all of them! For the most part the seminars were on different topics, but as marketers, we wanted to soak up as much as possible. Do you know if they recorded the seminars for those who couldn’t attend to watch later?

    • http://twitter.com/randyclarktko randy clark

      It is rough. I don’t believe they were recorded by the BIN staff, however I know some were recorded for example Roundpeg recorded Allison and Lorraine.

  • donk­in­caid

    Yes, it is a problem — and a great one to have. Another idea is to have each speaker present twice during the event. May not resolve all conflicts, but it helps. More rooms, AV support will be needed.

    • Randy Clark

      I like it. I wonder if it would be possible to offer bonus second pre­sen­ta­tions earlier or later in the day?

  • natfinn

    “Problem.” You brat. Way to use Robby Slaughter-esque catching headlines to get me to read it. :-P

    The fact that BIN become ever-so close to being the event that’s pure community it’s freakish. Beautiful. Recharg­ing. Ther­a­putic. It’s a Mecca for me anymore.

    And the fact that #BIN2013 is already set just makes me overjoyed!

    • Randy Clark

      Gotcha huh? Did you expe­ri­ence post BIN trauma as I did? I believe it will recharge me for about 6 months. Gee — If we could only have another event around the first of the year… such as a –1 day specific top, Northern IN BIN, BIN attendee meet up, or?

  • Jason Bean

    I def­i­nitely drive up to Canada (I mean NW Indiana) for a mid-year BIN event. I know I’ve already heard talk of some kind of satellite event in the south as well. I also think having multiple instances of the same sessions across the agenda would be a big help. I also think getting get video record­ings of the sessions and making some sort of “virtual con­fer­ence” after the live event would be great too. Sell atten­dance to the virtual content from the con­fer­ence as well as making it available to live event attendees for free or some sort of premium perhaps to offset the cost of the video/audio recordings.