Blog Camp Pune 2

I attended Blog Camp Pune 2 last Saturday. I was attending alone, so I didn't know anyone at all. I didn't interact much (since I'm a wuss at making conversation with strangers) I was more of an observer at the event. There were people from all age groups (literally). It began with introductions followed by people coming up and talking about (some technical stuff, I don't remember because it was going all over my head).
Then there were a few people who came up and spoke about Marketing your blog, how to make revenue out of your blog and how blogging should be topical and not just 'Dear Diary' type because why would anyone want to know what happens in your personal life apart from close family and friends. At this point I really started losing interest and was thinking of leaving because:

1. I do not blog to make money so I was not interested in knowing about how I should market my blog, etc.
2. I am more of a personal blogger and the thought 'Why would anyone want to read about my personal life' does come in to my mind more than a million times but the sheer satisfaction I get at the end of every post makes me want to blog. It's different from writing my diary because I know that no one is really reading/listening and there is no one to give me advice/answers. Blogging (even if I don't get feedback/comments) gives me a sort of assurance that someone might be reading and maybe I get advice/feedback. My biggest inspiration are blogs like Compulsive Confessor cause even these are personal blogs and they have a good number of readers. And I myself like to read (only if the grammar and spellings are in place) personal blogs of people I don't actually know.

But the talks that followed did catch my interest. I really liked Navin's talk. A few of the pointers I noted down (for Over My Coffee) from his talk were:
- what really works is content that your readers can relate to
- a distinctive style of writing
- give your readers something to think about
- write for skimmers, lazy readers
- include pictures, excerpt boxes, sub headings in your post
- if you write a topical blog, gather enough data, links for further reading before you set to writing

Then there was Abhishek Thakkar talking about his geeky IT life and his adventures from the advent of the World Wide Web beginning with Geocities to Twitter. His talk was really entertaining and fun, and I really didn't feel like leaving after that. A really interesting guy.

There were a lot of IT students there. A completely new arena for me since I have never come in contact with anybody from IT nor do I know anything about the field (except for all I read in Five Point Someone)

After getting back I had a lot of people to follow on Twitter, a lot of people following me, and a number of blogs to read. Made new contacts, met different people, inspiring people.

All in all a great experience and would love to attend more such camps :)

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