Tagged: springfield bloggers association

August 11th, 2009

I <3 Springfield Bloggers!

Last night, I went an excellent meetup with the Springfield Bloggers Association. I don’t know exactly what compels me to love bloggers so much, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because they’re like me. Quirky introverts who like playing with language and expressing ourselves, even if no one listens, er, reads. I don’t care that all we do at our “meetings” is introduce ourselves, put names to faces, and tell a few stories.

So these are the awesome faces who were there last night. Thought I’d share some link love:

Have a good night!

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Posted in link-lovin | No Comments »

April 14th, 2009

Springfield Bloggers Association Meet-up Tonight!

Quick, quick, quick post this morning. Huge day at work. It’s only 8:55 and I’ve already hit the ground running. Just wanted to remind all the Springfield, Missouri, bloggers that we have a Springfield Bloggers Association meeting tonight at Patton Alley Pub at 7 PM. And since I’m “in charge” of this meeting and I’ve never attended one of these meetings before, things could get interesting. As an extra side of motivation, my hubby wrapped up a Springfield Bloggers Association logo for us last night, and if you attend, you’ll get a sneak peak at it!

Personally, I’m sort of playing catch-up from my three days out of town last week. I’m so thankful I got to spend time with my family. We ate well, played board games, visited my aunt’s farm and her farm babies, and just had a great time with one another. I have pictures from the weekend that will probably be published tomorrow. I’m also in this weird crafty mood lately. All I want to do is crochet or sew or paint or go antiquing. Last night, I refashioned an old Old Navy sweater into a fun little cardigan, and I’ll have pics of it this week, too.

OK, Springfield bloggers, I’ll see you tonight, and my other wonderful readers, I’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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Posted in springfield, missouri | 1 Comment »

March 27th, 2009

Oodles and Oodles of Fun (and Craziness), Oh My!

Sheesh! This has been a whirlwind week. Lots and lots and lots going on. All of them awesome. But none of them allowing me to sit down and think and write even though all of them are blog, Twitter, web development related. What a catch 22. Let me share a few of them, so you know what’s going on.

SGFblogs.com

As many of you know, I’ve sort of dove in with the Springfield Bloggers Association. Mostly ball picking upping, which I’m happy to do. I love blogging. I love bloggers. You all know this. I hope that’s one of the reasons you read me nearly every day. Anyway, I’ve been at work on the SBA’s blog for a week or so, and I met with Andy Cline last night to discuss the blogroll and other possibilities for the group. The site is ready for visitors (but be patient, we’re still tweaking a few of the features/design elements), and if you’re in the Springfield area, I encourage you to submit your blog to our blogroll. If other local bloggers help promote SGFblogs.com and help it grow, it could quickly become a hub for bloggers in Springfield. We don’t know what that exactly looks like yet, but that’s why we need lots of bloggers to participate and help shape the group and site.

Project Hawk

Linden and I finally wrapped up our Twitter help guide (code name: Hawk) this week, and it will be published on our blogs starting Monday. A bulk of today will be spent getting my posts ready. We decided to split the four posts between us, Sarah, Linden, Sarah, Linden, so we can share the traffic. Once we’re done publishing, we’re having my husband design a little ebook for us. Chris is helping me with another top-secret project next week that has to roll out on Thursday, so he’ll do the ebook after that. Truly, this has been one of my favorite collaborative writing projects. I really haven’t done any outside of school, and group school projects are always rough when you’re the overachiever. I always got the fuzzy side of the lollipop, so to speak. Anyway, collaborating with Linden has been super fun, and this project counts as my first international writing project.

Continuing Ed Classes

The third project that’s been crazy consuming is completing applications and proposals for a few continuing education classes I’d like to teach at our local community college. Of course, they’re blogging related. I have three blogging classes–beginning, intermediate, and advanced–outlined, and I have a few social networking classes outlined, too. The classes are for the summer, and I need to get on the ball and get them out the door, so they can be reviewed before the summer schedule is wrapped up and mailed to the community. I hope there’s some interest in them. I love helping bloggers work on their blogs. (And I could use some extra cash.)

So my blogging may be a little scarce for the next two weeks or so. I’ll try to get in a few updates here and there, but don’t worry if I’m not around. I’m here. I’m checking in. Just not writing too much. Oh, yeah, and then there’s Easter and I’m going home to hang out with my folks for a few days, and there’s not much in the way of Internet speed there. I just stay up with my mother until 2 AM talking every night.

Anyway, have a great weekend! And if you’re in Springfield, stay warm. Snow is coming. (But that’s a blog post for another day.)

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Posted in personal, springfield, missouri | 1 Comment »

March 23rd, 2009

Springfield Bloggers April Meetup

Springfield bloggers, this is the official announcement for the Springfield Bloggers Association April meet-up. On Tuesday, April 14, at 7:00 PM, we’ll meet at Patton Alley Pub for drinks (or Diet Coke). We’ll grab a few tables in the back, discuss any official business that needs discussing, and spend some time networking and catching up with one another.

As always, any blogger from the Springfield, Missouri, area is welcome to join us. We don’t discriminate based on gender, religion, politics, blogging platform, or anything else. And we don’t “out” anonymous bloggers either. If you have questions or official business to add to the agenda, leave them in the comments.

Spread the word, and hope to see you there!

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Posted in springfield, missouri | No Comments »

March 17th, 2009

Blogaronis Don’t Disappoint, Lots of Ideas for Springfield Bloggers Association

At the end of yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I was going to the Blogaronis last night with my friend Teresa. Well, I went, and today I’m reporting back to you. In case you don’t know, the Blogaronis are local blogging awards given by the Springfield Bloggers Association, a loosely-organized group of bloggers in the Springfield area. I wasn’t nominated for A Fool of Myself (perhaps because I haven’t done much local blog networking), so I went to meet some new people and put some names to faces.

I had no idea what to expect. Honestly, I was a bit concerned that this “association” was just a group of geeks getting together to drink. Thankfully, I was wrong. The SBA is totally legitimate; essentially they’re a varied group of uber-blogging nerds like me. I’ve finally found my element.

Ten or so bloggers were there; I’d say about half were veteran SBAers and the other half were newbies, which put me at ease. We introduced ourselves, and Larry Litle of Simple Thoughts of a Complex Mind handed out the 14 category awards. After a photo, we split into separate conversations. I asked lots of questions. Found out that Larry’s wife is having a baby in a few weeks and that he needed someone to pick up the ball and schedule the next few meetings. So I became a ball picker-upper and volunteered to organize the next meeting. I am crazy.

Seriously, crazy. You know me. I’m an administrative, organizing freak of nature who is constantly thinking of ways to improve the things around her. I am an unstoppable monster. And as to be expected, I came away from Patton Alley Pub with a million and one ideas running through my head of how SBA can improve. I mentioned a few of them to Teresa. I told Chris about them. I woke up before my alarm this morning because I was thinking about them.

So if anyone from SBA reads the rest of this post, please understand that I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or ruin the status quo of the organization. I’m a newbie; I don’t know how things work. At the same time, I want to get involved, spread the blogging love, and help the organization grow. So here are the ideas I’ve been chewing on since last night:

Blog

I think it’s a little silly that a blogging association doesn’t have a blog, and if SBA had a blog, it would be easier for local bloggers to stay up to date with the organization. Currently, meeting news, the blogroll, and the blogaronis are scattered across several different blogs, which doesn’t make it easy to learn about the group. I would propose a WordPress blog with pages for essential information about SBA and posts with news and announcements and such.

WordPress has a powerful blogroll (Links) function that allows blog owners to categorize their links, and the site could also allow bloggers to submit their blogs for the blogroll. The blogroll could be organized according to location (i.e. Springfield, Nixa, Ozark, etc.), genre (i.e. sports, technology, news, etc.), or by any other specifications.

Meetings

I’m in charge of scheduling the next meeting, and I have no idea what that entails other than selecting a meeting place. I’m going to ask around, but I’d like to see some “programs” at those meetings. You know, 20 minute (or so) lessons on any number of blogging topics or words from some “celebrity” bloggers. Maybe they already do this. I really don’t know. While it is fun to get together and have a beer (or Diet Coke, in my case), I think some people might be more inclined to come to meetings if there is a clear purpose.

Community Service

Not sure how this would shape up, but bloggers have some power with their pens, er, keyboards, and I’d like to see them put those skills to good use. Off the top of my head, we could adopt a non-profit organization to plug on our blogs for a specific period of time, we could adopt some local businesses and get them on the blogging train, we could teach senior citizens how to set up their own blogs. The sky is the limit.

Flair

Lastly, SBA needs some flair. I’m talking SBA badges and Blogaroni “trophies” for our sidebars. We would need a designer, but I happen to live with one who might be up for the job.

And those are my ideas. I’m so glad to get them out of my head because they were driving me crazy! I think SBA has great potential to grow a blogging community in Springfield; I just want to see it succeed. I’m definitely going to exchange some emails with some of the veterans last night about how I should go about scheduling the next meeting. I’ll keep you posted on how all this pans out. Scary!

Author’s Note

It totally didn’t occur to me yesterday to share some link love with the people I met Monday night. If you’re in Springfield, definitely check out these blogs:

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Posted in bloggersguide.net | 4 Comments »

 

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