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6 Things an NMX Veteran is Doing to Prepare for the Event

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After months of preparation, it’s almost time for the New Media Expo event in Las Vegas. I know that the show management folks have been working hard, exhibitors have been preparing thier displays and products, and my fellow speakers have been crafting their presentations.

Serious Chimping at BlogWorldHaving attended New Media Expo a few times previously (when it was known as BlogWorld), here’s what I suggest to attendees to help them prepare for an event like this:

  • Identify Sessions of Interest – check out the schedule of presentations for the event, and skim through the various options available. Read the descriptions and speaker bios for the ones that sound promising, and make a tentative plan of which sessions will be most helpful for you.
  • Connect with Those You Want to Meet – if there are speakers, exhibitors, or other attendees that you want to meet, hopefully you’ve already made some connection with them. Interact with them on Twitter, comment on their blog, or send them an email so that they can get to know you a bit.
  • Prepare Business Cards – you’ll want to make sure that you bring business cards to the event. As digital as we’ve become, a business card is still a great way to share contact information with someone new. Make sure that you have plenty of cards and that they make it into your suitcase.
  • Look at Parties – we’ve seen a few parties announced thus far, and as we get closer to the event we’ll probably hear of additional gatherings or meetups. Just like you’ve identified sessions of particular interest, figure out which parties are going to be on your roadmap to help you make connections.
  • Figure Out Your Non-Conference Life – while we’re in Las Vegas taking in the NMX goodness, the rest of the world will go on. You’re going to receive email. Folks will be coming to your blog looking for something to read. People will continue to buy your products and services. Have a plan in place so that “real life” will go on while you’re enjoying NMX. Perhaps this means pre-scheduling articles for your blog. You might need to dedicate some downtime at the conference for responding to email in a timely manner. If you have coworkers, make arrangements for them to handle things while you’re out of town.
  • Get Plenty of Rest and Arrive Healthy – most of your time at New Media Expo is probably going to be spent on the go, meeting others, listening to presentations, attending parties, or otherwise not resting. In the few days before the event, try to get plenty of sleep. Be sure that you’re eating well, and it wouldn’t hurt to take plenty of vitamin C.

What other tips or suggestions do you have for others who are getting ready for New Media Expo? Leave a comment below and share with us all!

Travel & the Consumer-Driven Power of the Internet

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… by Alisha Miranda

Remember the days when planning a vacation involved sitting at a travel agency researching budget-friendly destinations months ahead of that precious two-week time off? Say goodbye to that, now travel planning is at your fingertips and easier than ever.

Enter: the Internet. Unfortunately for travel agencies, today the rise of social media has given way to more inspiring, informative, and independent platforms to help travelers get on the road the way they want, at any time, with any budget. We’ve come a long way from sitting in those chairs listening to typical tour packages like the Caribbean and Europe being thrown at us. Now, traveling the world is not only possible but also very much tangible and it’s all thanks to the World Wide Web.

As the barrier to entry gets lower, travel partners – which encompasses tourism boards and websites, guidebook companies, community and forum boards, and now travel bloggers – are leading the way in providing free travel tips, shared content, points of interests, and the ever-so-present deals for regular folks to book their own dream trips. Additionally, it seems anyone who has successfully traveled abroad and returned to share his or her stories can be considered a professional traveler. There are endless searches for personalized tips and itineraries to make one’s travel experience that more memorable as people seek out individual interests, preferences in lodging, and unique cultures. Another contributing factor online is niche travel groups, which has formed close-knit communities that foster a global exchange, such as the RTW travelers or ‘round the world travelers, backpackers (not just college students anymore!), career breakers, gap year students, and solo travelers. Easily found via Twitter chats and Facebook fan pages, these niches have grown to become the new “go to” reps for the latest in travel planning, advice, and promotions.

So how does one go about ditching their trusty travel agent and picking up a travel planning 101 guide? Well, for one, content is king. Stay away from the SEO noise, and go for the unique stories and articles that resonate with your desired trip. It takes some digging, but discovering reputable resources such as Matador Network, BootsnAll, and Lonely Planet will provide local insight and value to your research. Also, join a forum online like Twitter’s popularly used #TravelTuesday theme day to ask questions, connect with like-minded travelers, and find helpful articles. You can also find generic sites that discuss how to pack for a trip (whether it’s long term or short term), how to create a budget and stick to it, the best smartphone apps to accompany you on the road, and alternative cost-friendly lodging options such as hostels. The key to online travel is interaction: be an observer at first, then engage others.

To a large part of the world, this “do it yourself” movement may seem intimidating but the fact is we’re evolving, and at an alarming rate. It’s the incredible tool that is the Internet that is allowing us to travel the way we want, even carving the path for “digital nomads” or “location independent” workers. The power has shifted from the top-down, to bottom-up and its time to take advantage of this new era before being left behind.

Won’t you join us?

Alisha Miranda is a Freelance Writer and Social Media Manager based in New York City. Dubbed a proud Travel Geek, she has become known as an ambassador for young travelers, especially solo female travelers, and representing beloved travel communities through each journey. When she’s not settled in at home in Brooklyn, she’s daydreaming of her next trip abroad.

Make Your Next Trip to BlogWorld a Healthy One!

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Raise your hand if you had one too many desserts, alcoholic slushies, or fried food meals while at BlogWorld 2010. Yep, that’s what I thought. I think we all did.

In the days leading up to the event, I posted The Coaching Doctor’s Advice for BlogWorld, an interview I did with Dr. Aamer Iqbal about ways to stay healthy while in Vegas. Now, you can go a step further in learning about health trips while traveling. Today, two of BlogWorld’s speakers, Nathalie Lussier and Andy Hayes introduced a brand new project called Healthy Travel Lifestyle.

Nathalie Lussier is the Raw Foods Witch – yup, a witch – and she has the magick secrets to eating healthy. Andy Hayes is that travel guy, the go to man for all your questions travel. Together, they’re nearly too much awesome to handle in a single place. Not only do they have a new site where you can go to learn about healthy travel to BlogWorld (or any event), but they’re offering a free virtual Healthy Travel Lifestyle Happy Hour on December 7th so you can ask all your health and travel questions and learn more about their project. Hope to see you all there!

Getting Your Blog Noticed by the Pros

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During BlogWorld 2010, travel PR professionals John Forest Ales and Terri Maruca sat down with moderator Stafford Kendall to talk about how to get noticed by the travel pros. While I didn’t get to attend this session live, I’m loving my virtual BlogWorld ticket right now because in listening to the panel, this is relevant for bloggers from every niche who are interested in working with companies to do reviews.

Getting noticed by professionals, whether it be the PR company for a hotel that can give you free accommodations or a publisher that can send you a free book relevant to your blog, comes down to one thing: Build a relationship so you both give and take.

It's not about what they can give you - it's about what you can give them!

You might have a million readers a month, but a lot of bloggers are popular. Unless you have a relationship with a company, the PR person you contact may not know who you are. Or, they might know who you are, but 99% of the time, a PR rep can’t give you free stuff to review. They have to take your request and go through multiple levels to get it approved. A busy restaurant owner probably doesn’t have time to read blogs. They have no idea that you’re a respected expert within your community…yet. If you start to build a relationship, it doesn’t matter if you have ten readers or ten million readers – if you connect to the company, you can show them what you can do for them in terms of promoting their brand. Sometimes, having a small dedicated group of fans looking for something extremely specific is just as good for a company as having a larger community.

When building a relationship, something that is super important is considering what is right for your blog, not just what you can get for free. John and Terri noted that bloggers can sometimes come off as demanding and unprofessional, and often it’s hard to see through the noise of people who don’t actually care about the brand, but rather just want something for free. Let me tell you a bit about my own experiences with doing promotion and reviews while at BlogWorld.

I knew I would be in Las Vegas a day before most people, so I decided to contact some PR agencies with the hopes of doing a few restaurant reviews here on the BlogWorld blog. My thought process was that by highlighting a few places to eat, more BlogWorld attendees would go to those places specifically. The perk for me was getting to eat at some awesome restaurants. The perk for the restaurants was reaching a few thousand people in town for the weekend. Ultimately, I worked with Kirvin Doak Communications to review Border Grill for lunch, Tender for dinner, and Mix for drinks at night. Some of that worked. Some of that didn’t work. All of it was about audience.

First, let me tell you want did work – Border Grill. The food and drinks at all three locations was fabulous, and Border Grill was no exception. But it wasn’t just about my good experience that made this work for a BlogWorld review. Other things that came into play that made this an awesome option:

  • Border Grill was right by the conference location, so most people had to walk past it on their way back to their room. Convenience is the name of the game. They had been seeing it every day and possibly wondering about it, so a review solidified for them the need to stop in and check it out. Tender and Mix were both more out of the way, so if readers wanted to take my recommendation, they had to do a little hunting.
  • The price was right. Bloggers have McDonald’s budgets, so while Border Grill might be a justifiable price for a professional,at $20 – $30 minimum for a meal, this is a splurge for the average BlogWorld reader.  Tender and Mix, while being adequately priced for the quality and service, were just not possible for many people. Had my food not been comped, I would not have been able to afford either of these locations, and I know a lot of other bloggers were in the same boat.
  • Border Grill fit a range of readers’ needs. The atmosphere made it comfortable for readers wearing jeans or readers wearing suits – which was important, considering that some groups had both types of people. The food was also palatable to a wide range of people. It was Mexican, but not in a Taco Bell type of way. I felt comfortable recommending it to everyone I met, without a disclaimer of any kind.

While at BlogWorld, I know that my personal recommendation of Border Grill was responsible for at least three parties of 6+ people eating there or ordering food there, and since BlogWorld, I’ve gotten a few emails from people who traveled to Las Vegas for other conferences but remembered my review and checked out the restaurant. For every person who tells me they ate there after reading my review, there are probably ten people who also did, but just didn’t let me know. Did the restaurant get their money out of offering me a meal there? Absolutely. Tender and Mix? Probably not so much, unfortunately.

Border Grill met the readers’ needs here at BlogWorld extremely well in terms of convenience, price, and range. Again, this extends to non-travel reviewing as well. Will your readers ultimately take action due to your review? Is the product convenient for them? Is the price right? Does it meet the needs of a range of your readers, not just a small fraction of them?

That’s how you get the pros to work with you. Should I review restaurants again next year for BlogWorld, my approach will be different. No matter how much I want a free meal at Tender, it just isn’t a good option for BlogWorld readers. A less expensive burger joint makes more sense. And showing that you’ve done that kind of thinking about your request is what makes a PR rep want to work with you. You’ve not just in it for free stuff. You actually want to promote what they’re doing. Free stuff is just a perk.

When you approach PR companies with any kin of review request, work to build a relationship. Don’t ask what they can do for you. Ask what you can do for them. Be receptive to their ideas, but be prepared with a proposal of your own – and one that has the ultimate potential to show them the biggest return on investment possible for the company. If you deliver for a company, they’ll want to work with you again and again, which is awesome not just for you, but also for your readers.

Thanks to John, Terri, and Stafford for a great panel!

Top Gadgets & Tools For Blogging While Traveling

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As long as you can avoid the dreaded writer’s block, blogging while you’re at home – with a reliable internet connection and maybe even a second monitor – is the easy part. It’s blogging while traveling that can be a challenge.

I’m not even talking about the difficulties of finding time to blog while you’re on the road, either – I covered that topic in a BlogWorld Expo blog post in June. In this case, I’m talking about finding the best tools and gadgets to help make your blogging life easier while you travel.

Best Gadgets and Tools for Blogging While Traveling

What traveler doesn’t like travel gear? Sure, not every traveler is giddy at the thought of bringing the latest tech toys on a trip, but if your blog isn’t taking the same vacation you are then you might want to embrace just enough technology to keep your readers entertained while you’re traveling.

Bringing a desktop computer on a plane clearly isn’t an option, and sometimes even bringing your average laptop doesn’t make sense. My own everyday laptop isn’t huge by normal standards, but the 15″ screen makes it not exactly teeny, either. What’s more, if your whole life is stored on your laptop and something happened to it while you were traveling, you’d have more than a stagnant blog to worry about.

Some computing alternatives that help you blog while traveling are:

  • Netbooks – These tiny laptops aren’t the most powerful machines, but they’re incredibly travel-friendly. Even the best netbooks for traveling aren’t going to be powerful enough for you to do much in the way of photo or video editing, but if you can save that for when you get home then a netbook might be a good choice for you. They’ll stow easily in backpacks and even in many not-huge purses, and if you get one with a solid state hard drive you don’t even have to worry so much about being gentle with it. Blogging while bumping along in a chicken bus? No problem!
  • iPad – For many, the iPad is becoming the travel blogging weapon of choice over the old netbook. It’s definitely a versatile gadget, being more about media consumption than it is about media production, and is far prettier to look at than even the shiniest of netbooks. The main drawback for anyone who’s using an iPad for content production is its lack of an external keyboard (not everyone is skilled at or comfortable with typing on the screen). If your typing needs are minimal and you just want to be able to post the occasional photo or make sure previously scheduled blog posts go up as planned (plus be able to watch movies on long flights) then the iPad may be a more fun travel option than a netbook – and you can always buy a portable iPad keyboard, too. Be sure to get a durable iPad case for your toy, however, since there’s no close-able cover to protect the screen.
  • Smart Phone – Maybe you have no plans to do any blogging while you’re traveling because you’ve cleverly scheduled blog posts or have guest posts going while you’re on the road, but you’d like to be able to moderate comments, make sure posts publish when they should, and perhaps check email. You prefer books to movies on plane rides anyway, and you’re not interested in carrying a laptop-sized anything on your trip. Alrighty, then! A smart phone may be the only gadget you need. The iPhone is the most popular choice these days for traveling bloggers, but it’s not the only choice. There are Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and Flickr apps, for instance, on the BlackBerry and Android platforms, too. Whatever phone you have, just make absolutely sure you’re not going to a destination that will have you racking up enormous roaming and data charges (or that, if you are, you take appropriate measures on your phone to avoid them). Conversely, if you know you’ll need to get online with your smart phone while traveling, make sure you’ll be able to do that from wherever you’ll be.
  • Internet Cafes – Remember when you first started seeing internet cafes popping up when you traveled? Okay, you might be too young to remember a time before internet cafes, but for those of us who are a bit (ahem) older, the existence of an internet cafe sometimes served as the technological drink of water us wandering techno-philes longed for. Those of you who still relish the idea of traveling essentially without tech gear will be happy to know that there are still plenty of internet cafes to be found everywhere from Bali to Barcelona to Bamako. You can never be sure what kind of machinery you’ll encounter – not to mention how many will be on the fritz – and it may take you ages to type even a simple email on a foreign keyboard, but if your computing needs are minimal that may be more of an amusement than an annoyance.

It’s not all about the hardware, of course. So what are some other tools that can help you keep blogging while you’re traveling?

  • Google Docs – Even if you’re bringing your own netbook on your trip, storing an increasing amount of data on it will just slow it down over time. Saving documents out in the web-o-sphere means you can access them from anywhere and you aren’t taking up space on your computer.
  • iPhone Apps – As mentioned above, the iPhone is the most popular choice among traveling bloggers these days, and that’s due in part to the array of travel iPhone apps available. Your iPhone can now be your travel guide, your GPS device, your entertainment, and your blogging tool – in addition to being your phone. It’s not as easy to type on an iPhone as it is to type on an iPad or a computer keyboard, but that hasn’t stopped some people from relying entirely on an iPhone as a computing device when they travel.
  • Automatic Backups – This should go without saying, but too many people still don’t back up their data even when they’re at home… So obviously it needs to be repeated. Get thyself a backup system, people! At home, I have an external hard drive sitting on my desk, but I still use both that and a web-based backup method (I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of girl when it comes to my data). When I’m traveling, however, the web-based backup is all I have. And don’t think that just because you’re carrying only an iPhone or solely using internet cafes that you don’t need to worry about backups – make sure your blog is set to back itself up regardless of where you are.
  • Travel Insurance – Carrying any amount of expensive tech travel gear is enough to make anyone nervous. Nevermind having your blog go without a new post for a few days, the consequences of having your netbook or iPad lost or stolen aren’t fun to contemplate. If you’re bringing gear that you care about on your travels, be sure to get travel insurance before you leave home. Some trip protection insurance will cover up to $2500 of “personal effects” if something happens to them on your trip, so be sure to look for that when you’re getting insurance quotes. This obviously won’t keep your gear from getting swiped, but if the unthinkable does happen at least you’ll have some recourse to get a new gadget. (And since you backed up all your data, you haven’t lost anything. Right?)

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list of the gadgets and tools to keep your blog chugging while you travel. I haven’t even talked about camera gear, for one thing, or the various bags designed to more elegantly tote your gadgets around. So I’m going to conclude with a question – what is your favorite piece of equipment to blog when traveling? What devices make it possible for you to keep up with your blogging duties even while you’re out and about? Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

Jessica Spiegel is a staff writer at BootsnAll (your resource for all things budget travel) and spends most of her energy on BootsnAll’s Italy Travel Guide, WhyGo Italy. She’ll answer all kinds of Italy travel questions, including how to find cheap flights to Italy, which Italy tours might be worth your time and money, and critical stuff like how to get from the Rome airport into Rome. When it comes to gear, Jessica is more of a netbook girl than an iPad girl, and she won’t go anywhere without a camera (although she’s afraid of water enough that a regular ole DSLR is preferable to even the coolest waterproof digital cameras).

Photo Credit: scriptingnews

Becoming a Destination in the Growing Travelsphere

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Travelblogging didn’t start yesterday. Expats and wanderers have been chronicling their travels online for at least a decade – Lonely Planet and BootsNAll have provided online spaces for travel stories and advice for longer. What is new is the rise of travelbloggers as a recognizable entity and community.

@nerdseyeview and @kag2u blogging from an Iowa campground.

In 2008 I co-hosted Travelblogging for Beginners at SxSW with Sheila Scarborough – it’s the first time I’d seen travelblogging on a conference agenda. The following year saw the launch of TBEX, the Travelblog Exchange, which attracted an audience of 300 travelbloggers in 2010. This year is also the second year of a travelblogging track at Blog World Expo. We are popping up on panels at PR conferences, in Best Of lists, and on daytime TV . We are even scoring book deals. We have arrived.

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For a few years, I had a freelance gig for BlogHer. I’d read the travelblogs twice a week. Sometimes I searched for topic specific information – for example, after the flooding in Peru, I wanted to see what travelers were saying about the Machu Picchu region. Other times, I’d click through new blogs looking for inspiration. After four years of this twice weekly browse-fest, I can catalog a post or an entire blog in a few clicks.

Here is the gap year adventurer. Next, a mom dealing with the tribulations of small children and the TSA. Now , another round the world couple living out of their backpacks. Yawn. Yes, I have become jaded and a hard critic in the classic sense of that word. And under that jaded sensibility is a challenge for travelbloggers. As we grow and become easier to pigeon hole, how are we going to stand out? I think there’s a way. And while this is targeted towards travelbloggers, most of this translates to bloggers of any stripe.

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Be transparent: I’ve followed with great interest travelbloggers who exposed exactly how much money they were saving prior to their adventures or exactly how much things cost. I stumbled across a blog that had an attached spreadsheet capturing every single dime spent per country with an average for each category and country. I’ve also followed bloggers who report not only how much they earn, but exactly how they earn it and on which domains. This kind of honestly in finance is not only inspirational but provides a much needed reality check to those planning their travels and those with aspirations to make money travelblogging.

Transparency doesn’t just apply to finances, though. Use it for press trips, anything that’s sponsored, giveaways, reviews: disclosure isn’t just a legal consideration, it builds trust.

Share your expertise: Be it a specific destination or a style of travel, targeting your expertise to your audience – parents traveling with children of a certain age, or Honduras or Hawaii or Hanoi — digging deep into your topic ties you to both the curious and the enthusiastic. And you’re helping! You’re offering up useful, concrete, actionable information about traveling with a wheelchair or finding the best gelato. Those you help are your advocates; they’ll help you stand out in return for sharing your knowledge.

Have a presence: Ah, it’s so lovely to dream of the day when all I’ll do is write posts for my own blog. Ideally, this is accompanied by lucrative speaking gigs (backed with a luscious per diem and all expenses paid.). Never mind all that. Showing up elsewhere is good for your reach. This might be a blogging gig for a network site, but it can be many other things – engaging on Twitter and Facebook, hosting meetups , thoughtfully placed guest posts, or sharing your platform with good causes. No meetups near you? Start something, even if it’s just coffee with a travelblogger across town.

Tell it like it is: Lose your luggage in the airport and your lunch over the rail on the boat? Fall in love with the surf shack boys even though your adoring husband is right behind you on the sand? Fear for your life on that taxi ride to Monteverde? Bring all that emotion with you to your blog – travel or otherwise. There are servers chock full of sanitized for your protection travel “content”, there’s no need for more of it. Bring your sincerity and wonder, your fear and aggravation, this is your story. Make it live for others and they will love you for it.

Pam Mandel is a freelance writer and the blogger behind Nerd’s Eye View . She’s a cofounder the travel social gathering, SCOOT (Seattle Consortium of Online Travel) and Passports with Purpose, the annual travelbloggers fundraiser.

Photo Credit: Photo by road trip buddy @pwcarey

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