Blogging High!

Over the weekend, I attended my very first blog summit. Yup, I did not even know that bloggers in the Philippines had conventions!

Gee, can’t even remember how I even got to their site but when I did, it got me all excited. Imagine, this is already their 3rd summit year. I tried to invite my blogging friends to come with me but each one had something else to do that weekend so I ended up going by myself.

I’m just now looking over the pics I took with my handy digicam and there is one thing that stands out in all this — MY PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS SUCK!!!! So many pics, many blurry or dark. Aaaaarghhhh!!!!

One of the first speakers, Chris Haravata, showed a demographic profile of bloggers. 51.5% were from 13-19 years old; 39.6% were aged 20-29. Just those 2 categories alone total over 90% of the blogosphere!!! There were about 3 other age categories. Clearly, my age category was in the single digits!!! So…either I am one of the few COOL BLOGGER MOMMAS or I am one of the exceptions to the dinosaurs….

I won’t go into the detailed line-up of speakers. Other better blogs have already done that. Let me just give you snippets of the 2 days as far as they had a personal impact on me:

1. Noemi and Lauren Dado (mother-daughter blogging tandem)

Lauren is known in the Philippine blogosphere as the very first blogger. She has been doing so since 1996. By knowing a little more about her, I am getting to understand my blogger kids even more. Her mom, Noemi, began her blog a few years after she lost her son and is now spearheading Grief Recovery in the Philippines. I just had to go up to Noemi and meet her. Why? Because I cried all over my keyboard just reading about the events that led up to her loss.

2. Marcelle Fabie’s magic tricks (and how to unlock one’s creative potential)

The bending fork did it for me. I was hooked on the presentation! Hahaha…But really, Marcelle’s tips on unblocking your writer’s block were very useful. I’ve got those DUH days when no topic or event makes me want to blog….Thanks, Marcelle!

3. Arelle Valla

Now here is one lady who has gone from newbie to problogger in between the 2nd blogging summit and this one! Her experience in selling condo units via her blog really made me sit up and listen while trying to copy down her presentation points with my right hand (so now I need time to read my own chicken scratch!). After hearing her, my mantra now is “CAN DO, CAN DO!”

4. Asia’s BIG BROTHERS

The legal track was most interesting. It started out with Roby Alampay narrating how lucky we bloggers in the Philippines are (though we may think otherwise sometimes) as our Asian neighbors find BIG BROTHER often restricting what they can or cannot write about. The Bloggers Code of Ethics was also brought up (I actually have not made up my mind yet whether I would vote for or against such a code. Will it cramp our blogging styles? hmmmm..)

5. Problogging and the almost-lost-Rustan’s GC

This topic got me glued to my seat till the end of the summit. I never knew there was money in blogging! So it was with a newbie’s interest that I sat through this track, all the while writing down as much as I could with all my senses focused on the presentations. The back-to-back intermediate pad papers are evidence of my intense desire to copy down as much as I could. Of course, following in the footsteps of people like Abe Olandres whose income-generating capacity from blogging is well-known in the blogosphere is out of the question but considering that monetizing blogs has not yet taken off here as fast as it has in the Northern Hemisphere, who knows!!!! Watch your back, Abe! Hahahaha….

In the process of listening to this track, I almost forfeited my having won one of the Rustan’s P1,000 GCs. The emcee had called out my name earlier and asked the winners to see her before 5PM. I kept glancing at my watch but thought there was ample time to claim it later as I did not want to miss the goings-on. At 4:30, during an interval between 2 presentations, I went out to the Globe booth to find out they had re-raffled off my GC! What to do????

Good thing I found the emcee. After explaining to her that I thought I had till 5PM to claim the GC and that it was only 4:30, they gave the prize to me. I did pity the poor girl whose name was selected supposedly to replace me but I guess it wasn’t meant to be….

6. New blogger friends

This was really a great highlight — getting to exchange blogsites with new-found friends. Some were blogging ahead of me; many others were newbies. It didn’t matter. What mattered was our common interest in blogging. So, now’s my chance to say hello to some of the people I met:

Janette – wow, I’m amazed at how you guys have put together this summit! Kudos to JJ, to you and everyone else who were responsible for it.

Deedee – glad to have met another mom (I was kinda feeling OP seeing how young the bloggers at the summit were). And being a writer yourself has inspired me. The fact that you have gone from the old style of publishing to blogging is testament to your flexibility.

Edlynn – you struck me as very quiet. Guess what! Small world that today as I searched out your blog, I saw your wedding pic with Fr. Johnny Go as priest-celebrant. Well….he is School Director in my boys’ school. Call that coincidence or WHAT!!!!!

Alou – I hope you get to put up all your photos soon. Will visit your blog every now and then to follow your sojourns and get tips from you as well. Happy travelling!

Celeste – your blog will become my Baguio reference. Nice to have met you!

Karlo – here’s looking forward to your very first blog. Don’t forget to invite me, ha?

7. Meeting MLQ 3 and Ricky Carandang

I can’t end this blog without mentioning having met my idol newscaster, Ricky Carandang. I first saw Ricky when he had just taken over the stock exchange reporting of Coco Alcuaz on ANC. And I have seen him transform into the super confident, unfazed, eloquent, asks-the-hard-questions newscaster that he is now. And of course, Manolo Quezon’s blog is a must-read for those interested in the political arena.

Asked Ricky what happened to his blog (which kinda died…). Well, the good news from him is that he and Manolo Q are collaborating on a new blog in the works. Looking forward to that one!

So there…my very first blogging summit foray. Here’s to more hours of more blogging….