My friend Dave Taylor came up with a great idea, a social media summit in Hawai’i, and invited me to be one of the presenters. Unfortunately I can’t be there but Dave has arranged for me to offer a special discount to my friends and readers of this blog.
Dave is not only a highly accomplished and respected blogger and social media expert, he has been on the Internet since before most of us knew there was an Internet. His co-presenter, Andy Beal, is another social media expert who, like Dave, has the big picture and can also to get down to practical details to help you make social media work for you.
It will be a small group event, only 28 seats, and in the style of a seminar, so you will get highly personalized attention from Dave, Andy and the other presenter/trainers. They promise no sales pitches, no “death by PowerPoint”.
The dates? March 18-19, 2008
The place? The very swish Hilton Waikoloa Village, Kona, Hawai’i
If you want to get up to speed fast on social media, and enjoy some sun, sandy beaches and the odd mai tai, this event will be hard to beat.
You can read more about the event at the Aloha Social Media Summit website. There is a serious reduction in price for an early bird registration before Feb 20th.
And the special discount I mentioned above is $200 (which will be on top of the very generous early bird rate if you get in before that expires on Feb 20 and will still apply after that date): just copy and paste the following code into the box that says “Discount Code”: des.
Making Time to Read and Comment on Other Blogs
Given the length of my “to do” list and the number of items on it – and I mean “to do now or real soon”, not just “to do one of these days” – I’m sure I’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time today going through my feed reader and catching up on a lot of blogs I enjoy reading.
I’ve left a comment here and there, but most of the time has been reading. I did spend some time researching, completing and publishing one blog post, but it was on another blog (see Would You Include Twitter as a Fellow Panelist?), not here.
Even so, I was feeling frustrated because I’d actually started out to look for some inspiration for a post for this blog – if nothing else to let people know I’m still around. But while I found lots of interesting and informative posts, I did not seem to have any fresh inspiration for a post that would fit in here.
Then I read Chris Brogan’s declaration that next Monday, April 28th, is to be “Reading and Commenting Day“, a day for doing just what I’ve been doing today, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs. And he encourages his readers to report back on what they/we have done. I guess that for me, Monday might have to be a day when I do some of the things I had previously thought I’d be doing today. I can report on some results from my own reading and commenting day.
Actually, I have long followed the advice I picked up from Dave Taylor ages ago, to allocate a serious proportion of “blogging time” to reading and commenting on other blogs (my recollection is that he recommended 40% but even if that is not exact it was a significant proportion) .
It’s about being part of the conversation and contributing, not simply taking.
Just that today’s excursion wasn’t quite planned. I suppose there was part of me that wanted to take advantage of the fact that it’s been a public holiday where I live.
And, come to think of it, I did achieve what I set out to do. I got the inspiration for this blog post!
Why not give Chris Brogan’s challenge a try? See you over there, reporting, I hope.