Altitude Design Summit
As y’all know, I attended the Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City two weeks ago. This week, I’ll be giving you the low-down on my experience, sharing what I learned and showing pictures of the people I met!
My experience at Alt was amazing! (Well, I got the stomach flu, but that’s another story). It was so exciting to check the blogs that I follow in the days leading up to Alt and see their chatter about what they’d be wearing, who they were excited to see, and what they hoped to learn. I knew I would be with a lot of young, stylish bloggers, so I agonized over my outfits!
I landed in Salt Lake City and was immediately freezing (this Florida girl thinks snow should fall at 50 degrees). As I stood in line for the shuttle to the hotel, I chatted with some of my fellow conference attendees. These girls were so adorable, fun, and super stylish. I soon realized I was standing with Danielle Krysa from The Jealous Curator and Bri Emory from Design Lovefest. Holy smokes…two of my favorite blogs! I was immediately star struck and tongue-tied. Thankfully, the shuttle arrived in time before I completely geeked out.
Besides meeting new people, I think my favorite part of Alt was all the stuff we were given! Upon checking in, I received a huge box of goodies from Alt’s sponsors. There were free notepads from Pinhole Press, hand soap from Method, handmade jewelry (I received a beautiful necklace that’s multicolored), journals, scarves, hand towels, and so much more! It was so touching to see how much effort had been put into each goody bag to make all of us feel welcomed.
I quickly realized there are three main questions that are asked of you at Alt: 1. “What do you blog about?” 2. “Do you have a card?” and 3. “What is your Twitter handle?” Meeting new people involved the exchange of business cards and the searching for each other’s names on Twitter. It was so fascinating to be with such a large group of people who are passionate about blogging and making a connection with their readers.
One of the panel discussions I attended was about the importance of collaborating with other bloggers in order to enhance your blog and grow your readership. This discussion was lead by Victoria Smith from SFGirlbyBay, Bri Emory from Design Lovefest, Danielle Krysa from The Jealous Curator, and Joslyn Taylor of Simple Lovely.
Slideshow Presentation about Collaborations
I learned a lot from this panel such as making sure to collaborate with someone whose style is similar to yours and establishing guidelines so it’s clear what each of you expects from the collaboration. I really intend to collaborate with another blogger in the future in a series of posts, so be on the lookout for that in the future!
Another panel I attended focused on organizing your online life using online tools such as Evernote, Google Docs, and Flipboard. This discussion was incredibly helpful because I have millions of files on my desktop containing ideas for future posts, photos, and audio files, but I didn’t know how to efficiently organize them. I now plan to make full use of Google Docs! One of the speakers at this panel was Holly Burns of Nothing but Bonfires. I’m a huge fan of hers and we exchanged numbers so I could set up a time to interview her (I felt like I had just gotten Ryan Gosling’s number…that’s how excited I was!)
Stay tuned for more details of my experience at Alt!
