Socializing at Bloggy Boot Camp

One of my favorite parts of being at Bloggy Boot Camp was getting to socialize and network with other bloggers. It goes beyond just matching names with faces. After a few minutes of talking, you may find you have a lot in common with the other bloggers.  We had a chance to socialize a little at lunch, but the biggest opportunity was after the conference was over (and the night before the conference...which I missed).
Immediately after the conference ended, Tiffany of SITS Girls was mobbed by fans. Yes, I was one of them. It looks like we were all getting Bump-Its advice from Stephanie as well.  The Las Vegas area bloggers left for home, but many of the rest of us got together for dinner at various locations.  Although I'm extremely new to Twitter, using it kept me in touch with everyone so I knew which restaurant to join them at.

It didn't take me long to find out that several of the ladies I was sharing the dinner table with lived fairly close to me.  I also discovered that many of them had been to a variety of blog conferences and had a lot of funny stories to share.

After dinner, we indulged ourselves at Nielsen's Frozen Yogurt and had even more fun.  The bus load of high school students from out of town that showed up while we were there looked like they were wondering what was wrong with us.  Spending the extra time together has made it easier to remember these ladies better than the ones I only swapped business cards with. 

I believe the networking will help our business as well.  It was nice to talk about the projects my husband and I have been working on and I had opportunities to encourage other women there to try their hand at opening an Etsy shop. When at an event like this, it's no time to be a wallflower.  People who know me now may have a hard time believing it, but I used to be pretty shy.  Even now, I have to fight the urge to just hang out in the back of the room.  At Bloggy Boot Camp, nobody knew what I would be like and I had the opportunity to push myself to talk to people and even hang out with the "cool girls."