February8
Blissdom this weekend was a great time. First thing in the door we were handed some lovely swag bags. The bags themselves were swag!
We all know that Lands’ End makes the best canvas totes. They supplied them in pink and a coupon for free shipping if we want to order something else. Thanks Lands’ End!
Everytime I surf their site, I want to move to the beach, ride a bike everywhere and carry everything in a nifty canvas bag with a sweater tied around my shoulders. Anyone else? No? Just me?
There were all sorts of other goodies in there too.
A reusable grocery bag from Walmart. Did you know that Walmart has a person devoted entirely to managing their social media interactions? I didn’t either! Apparently, Walmart “gets it” that bloggers and Twitter users and Facebook users have the power to influence a large number of others. I give them props for that. Anywhoo, he was there and I have to say he seemed like a neat guy.
Crocs provided the lanyards for our name tags and a $50 gift certificate for each attendee. I’m loving these but probably more likely to go with this or that.
If you see the bright green lanyard…you might be able to see that I actually had blog cards made – they had my header and email/blog info. I felt like a fraud ordering them and considering the minimum was 250, I have about 200+ left. But Vista Print rocks and they cost less than $10. All the cool kids had them so I was glad I could whip my own card out when someone asked. No that has nothing to do with the swag bags but I had to tell you all about my silly little cards.
Chris Mann, who is a serious hottie with some serious pipes, provided a preview CD with a couple of his songs. He even has a blog and has been twittering with attendees for the past couple of weeks.
Sony Music provided us with the soundtrack from “He’s Just Not That Into You” (anyone see this yet? looks really like fun from the previews). And to be honest, I assume the CD is from them – no one told me that for sure so if I am wrong, sorry!
Not pictured because I have no idea what might possibly have happened to it, is a box of Little Debbie 100 calorie snacks. I want to talk more about these another in case anyone is curious but let me say that the chocolate cake ones rock! Serious yum.
Other sponsors were Geek Squad (still not speaking to them after my laptop issues so I refuse to link – but I might dislike them a little less after this weekend), Care.com (which I need to check out…hooks you up with babysitters, pet sitters, housekeepers, and tutors based on zip code – they give you back ground check info, prescreening questions, reference checks…sounds worth looking at more closely), New Line Records (website is nothing but their name on my screen but maybe I’m missing something), RGM (ad network – an alternative to Blogher and Adsense), Blue House Blog, and Lijit (I’m a little unclear about this…need to read more…a search engine for your blog is my understanding).
So there is a little sponsor love because we all loved our swag and the less tangible good stuff sponsors provided to keep the cost of Blissdom down so that it would be affordable for all.
I have so much more to tell. This week, I’ll tell you all about how Jen Lancaster and I are totally BFFs now, all of the things I did that were outside of my comfort zone, more about the guy 250 married women were crushing on, how I sat next to someone from the burgh who knows my hubby and SIL, oh and the actual conference and what I learned.