Thoughts on BlogOrlando

Welcome back!

Well, BlogOrlando 3 came and passed but it was a great show.  I had a lot of fun and it was a new experience for me being a session leader in the Writing Social Fiction panel.

I’ve never had the opportunity before to speak in front of a large group of people at a conference so it was like I mentioned in my last entry, both exciting and nerve-wracking.  Exciting in I could talk about what I’ve done with Calling Home and nerve-wracking in preparing myself to speak in front of what could be a large group of people.

After getting some advice from family, friends, and other bloggers (especially a friend who came from out of town to see me speak, hi BrilliantJeni! ), I came to the conference armed with my whopping two slides and a sheaf of paper with my listed topics.  The presentation room was a classroom at Rollins College and it could fit about thirty or forty people.  For most of the day I sat in the room and listened to some other great presentations and watched as people who knew what they were doing a lot more than I lead their sessions.  I got some great pointers on how to run a session ala unconference style.

What’s an unconference style session you ask?  Put simply, it’s a session where you, as the session leader, are merely there as a facilitator in a discussion.  You’re to actively involve the session participants in this discussion.  As you can guess this is a very different form of presentation, but one I ultimately enjoyed more.

When my session started, there were about 20 people left.  I was happy to see that many had stayed to listen to me since I honestly expected about five to ten people.  I was furthermore surprised when I asked how many had written creatively to raise their hand about fifteen of them did so.  Definitely the audience I was looking for.

The discussion went well, with questions being asked and answers given.  All in all, the forty minutes I had went by quickly and then it was time for the final keynote of the day.

I had a great time at BlogOrlando and encourage any to come on by and hear some great people speak when it comes around in September of next year.