IZEAFest Orlando

IZEAFest Orlando was awesome!

Orlando is the home of IZEA and the IZEAn’s so they were on their own turf, near their office, using very friendly facilities, and they were able to put all their efforts into creating an amazingly informative lineup of speakers and the best convention EVER.

Most of the panel discussions were relevant and were aimed at us, as bloggers, and as Sean Jackson, the MC said, most of us filled an entire notebook with tremendously useful information, whereas last year in Las Vegas, it was one page of notes. We learned from the best of the best – the most influential bloggers, the highest earning bloggers and the most knowledgeable industry experts.

I really liked the length of the 1 hour events, with 15 minute breaks between. We never seemed rushed, had plenty of time for questions and the time management aspect was superbly arranged as we never went overtime.

With so many IZEA staff members able to be present and available, I felt I was able to access information, ask for help and discuss situations if necessary. For instance, I was not able to sign up for the brand new ‘container’ CloudShout, even with a ‘golden ticket’. I was immediately introduced to Daniel, a dev team member and he started work on the problem right away. I mean, right away…!

Day 1: The welcome party was held in the Grand Bohemian Hotel lounge. Drinks and appetizers were abundant and we had a blast meeting old friends and making new friends. Many of the IZEAn’s were there and very welcoming. About the only thing I could say wasn’t perfect was the fact there were soooooooooo many people in the room making it was impossible to distinguish the bloggers from the advertisers from the staff from the significant others. Perhaps if we’d received our name tags that evening it would have been less intimidating for new participants/bloggers who’d never met anyone previously. Another suggestion I have is to include a good map of the area, with the hotels marked, the various venues marked and the best/closest parking lots marked. I ended up paying $30.00 for valet parking which was not a nice surprise!

Day 2: We were not early enough to enjoy coffee and donuts at 8 am – that’s a problem with not staying at the convention ‘venue’ and I won’t make that mistake again – it would have been much less stressful to walk out of our room into the elevator and into the seminar rooms. Being in a strange city, it’s not easy to find parking – especially in downtown Orlando with it’s one way streets. Once we figured that out we were fine for the rest of the event – well, other than getting back to our hotel…. but that’s another story.

The morning sessions were so interesting and lunch time arrived quickly. We had an hour and a half and arrangements had been made for us to walk to ‘Wall Street’ to enjoy lunch in any of three bar/restaurants. Once again – that was so well arranged. The afternoon sessions were great, with Ted finishing up the day with new additions to Social Spark. ‘Causes’ such as various charities are a common thread amongst many bloggers and Social Spark now includes a complete section devoted to various causes.

Ted also announced the new ‘Networks’ where various bloggers are listed under categories such as ‘Best Looking Blogs’, ‘Mommy Blogs’ and ‘Well Written Blogs’ which will make advertising a snap for many advertisers looking for a certain ‘niche’.

Cloudshout is the newest platform announced by Ted. He called it a ‘container’. As I said before I wasn’t able to sign up but will soon!

We rushed back to the hotel to change, then met downtown on Wall Street for dinner and drinks and a ‘crazy hat night’. The pictures posted on Flick’r say it ALL – search for ‘Izeafest’ to see the craziness.

Day 3: Up early again, and I realized I had a cold coming on. My throat was sore and I was dragging my ‘you know what’ but I made it through the day. Of course my favourite session was the ‘Extreme Blog Makeover’.

My blog, along with two others, had been chosen by IZEA to receive an ‘Extreme Makeover’. Matt Blancarte from Unique Blog Designs (UBD) designed a new logo for me, he cleaned up the sidebars, adjusted colors and uncluttered the site, creating a crisp, very attractive, welcoming site. The compliments and comments from the Ustream discussion board and Twitter board were very favourable and complimentary. I love the new design and can’t wait to show it off! you can check it out on the UBD blog.

Blogger friends Drew and Marisa also had their blogs ‘made over’ and were thrilled with them too. This high note ended the sessions and with a few final words from Ted and a huge thank you to the IZEA team we left to prepare for the Scavenger Hunt!