I was fortunate to spend this weekend at the Financial Bloggers Conference in Chicago. I had a great time and got to meet lots of fellow bloggers. There are a couple of things I wish I had done differently though.
I arrived at the hotel on Friday a little after noon for a meeting with an advertiser. I spotted a few bloggers in the lobby already. Crystal of Budgeting in the Fun Stuff was easily identifiable since she had a BITFS tote bag so I went over and introduced myself and my wife. She then introduced me to Jesse of PF Firewall. Then the guy across from her and introduced himself as J.D. Roth. I was so surprised that I barely managed to introduce myself and forgot to introduce my wife. I wanted to talk to him but was afraid of saying something idiotic and looking stupid so I ended up saying nothing and looking stupid. I am an introvert and have trouble coming up with something to say on the spur of the moment. Before the next conference I have got to be prepared with something to say when a blogger I admire talks to me.
I did recover from that and managed to meet lots of other bloggers. From the Yakezie I met Len Penzo, Barbara Friedberg, Jason from Live Real Now, Suba from Wealth Informatics, Travis from Our Journey to Zero, Ashley from Money Talks, and more. There are too many to list them all.
I also managed to introduce myself to some of my favorite bloggers such as Pat Flynn, Adam Baker, and Donna Freedman. They were all very approachable and I hope I didn’t bore them too much. I didn’t have an agenda that I wanted to talk about. I just wanted to thank them for their helpful and enjoyable blogs. And lastly I was able to meet Phil Taylor of PT Money and thank him for organizing the event.
Here are a few links to more posts about the conference. Thanks to Lazy Man, who I also got to meet at the conference, for putting together the list. I’ve added a few more links to it.
Financially Consumed
Smart Passive Income
The Jenny Pincher
Get Rich Slowly
Cash Money Life
Consumerism Commentary
Wise Bread
Free From Broke
Live Real Now
Budgeting in the Fun Stuff
So Over Debt
I appreciate your insights! Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this year. Hopefully, I will next year. Sounds like it was a success.
Hope to see you there next year.
Next year I’ll certainly be there. I think it’s better if you pretend that you don’t know who anyone is. That way when you meet the JD Roth’s of the world, you aren’t flustered.
Ha! Good idea.
Andy, it was great to meet you and your wife, and I really enjoyed chatting with you! It’s going to be neat to see how the fact that many of us have met face to face now changes the comments and relationships in the blogosphere, don’t you think? Hope to see you again at FINCON12!
It was nice meeting you and your wife as well. It will probably change my interaction with bloggers now that I “know’ some of them.
Nothing about you is boring, dude. See you at next year’s conference.
Thanks. Looking forward to it.
I went out with Donna Freedman after the conference. I just missed meeting you. I’m sure that I could come up with something witty for the both of us! I did meet a bunch of people from WiseBread. I was so out of my league!!!
I read this comment after I commented on your site. It sounded like a pretty cool lunch.
Glad you had a great time! 🙂
Thanks.
It was great meeting you!!
It was great meeting you too!
When JD introduced himself to me, my answer was “I know.”
I hear you about being an introvert and being afraid of saying the wrong thing. I definitely should have worked harder to meet more people at the conference (folks like you).
Ha!
We will do better next time.