Top 10 things Blissdom did right

I learned a ton about blogging and life from the Blissdom conference.  Another post will talk about what I learned about blogging.  This post is about the conference itself.  Following are the top 10 things the conference organizers, Alli and Barbara, and Paula really nailed:

1. Opening keynote by a non-blogger
It was certainly a risky move to open a blogging conference with a motivational speaker rather than a blogger, but the gamble paid off big time.  Kevin Carroll set a tone of inspiration and tone that lasted the entire conference.  The first brilliant move by Alli and Barbara. 

2.  Minimize the choices 
Instead of having many panels in small rooms, Blissdom had just 2 tracks in two rooms.  This made the choices easy and minimized the number of conflicts when you wanted to be in 2 (or 3 or 4) places at once.

3.  Late Breakfast
After a late night of socializing (oh I mean networking), the last thing someone wants to do is get up early.  At Blissdom there was plenty of time to get decent sleep, and still get to eat breakfast.

4.  Location, location, location
At Blissdom the location left all the attendees breathless.  I think it's safe to say that most of us never knew that anything like the Gaylord Opryland with its 3 indoor terrariums ever existed.  And the room was the cheapest I've paid for any conference.

5.  Organizers you can relate with
Many times you feel that conference organizers are a little separated from the attendees.  At Blissdom this wasn't true.  When Alli speaks, she instantly connects on the attendee level (if she isn't crying that is ;)

6. Central Location
I met very few people who flew over 2 and a half hours to get to the conference.

7.  Brands that "get it"
The brands that expo'd at Blissdom were some of the more savvy I have seen.  They got the space and knew how to interact at a conference.  A whole post dedicated to the brands is coming later.

8.  Not too much focus on swag
At these conferences there is a temptation to really focus on the free stuff.  Blissdom did a great job of minimizing this.

9.  Multi-media during panels
Panels are very interactive experiences and you need to be able to present audio-visual helps and cues.  This is the first conference I've seen where the panelists were allowed to display slides, videos, or demos.

10.  No "celebrity" cliques
Everyone was very accessible.  There was very much a feeling of common ground where nobody was above anybody else.  

Blissdom was a great conference that I highly recommend.  Coming up, the things I learned about Blogging @ Blissdom.  Stay tuned!