Finally, a wrap up in images:

BlogWorld Expo Banner

Tessa & Stu of ideablob

Jeremy Tanner rockin’ the ideablob shirt

Ezra, never too cool for ideablob.

Julie from b5media sporting a lovely ideablob putty necklace!

BLOB DOWN!!

Community has been on my mind a lot lately, partly because as I mentioned before, I went to BlogWorld with ideablob.com. They’re an online community where people discover, discuss and share ideas (and they have a $10,000 seed money winner every month).

I spent my weekend talking about ideablob to the BlogWorld community because they recognized that in order to be a community, you have to be a part of other communities – not just your own.

One of the things the ideablob team told me was that one of the most important aspects to their community of entrepreneurs is the support that the members give to each other - the comments, the feedback, the advice, the votes for the ideas that are posted each month. It got me to thinking about the importance of community online, even the community that I have here on my blog and the comments and emails and tweets that you all send me. It provides me with the momentum to keep going.

Ever since jumping into the social media world, I’ve been steadily building my own community online, through joining other communities, just like what ideablob is talking about. It’s really the only way that I can navigate all of the sites, services and even the conferences. When I say “my people” I really mean “my community”.

I’m always astounded at how large the online community is  - I had people walk up to me at BlogWorld and after introducing myself, they filled in my last name and knew exactly who I was. I was constantly surprised. But, community is exactly like that.  Any online community is like that - we’ve all got our in-jokes and things that identify us as part of that community. Heck, use the phrase “fail whale” at a conference and you can immediately identify who the Twitter users are for example.

Just get out there and support the community! Regardless of where your community is: be it twitter, facebook, ideablob or on my blog or yours. Give someone some support! It’s good karma!

Oh, and check out my pictures from BlogWorld Expo of my favorite blobbers in Las Vegas! (image source: me!)

As you guys know, I spent the weekend at Blog World Expo in Vegas. The entire experience was unlike anything that I’ve done before, despite having been to both SxSWi and Vegas, respectively, in the past.

I think I might have gotten about 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night, and bounced back the next morning to talk about ideablob.

Some people I talked to, like Guy Kawasaki, had heard about ideablob before, but still liked playing with the putty.  Others hadn’t heard about ideablob in the past, and it was quite cool watching their eyes light up as they “got it”, understood the core concept and you could just see them either thinking about what they were going to submit themselves or they were thinking about who in their lives they were planning on telling about ideablob.

People are so passionate about their ideas, and you can tell right away when you’re talking to someone that the gears are turning so fast that they can’t even keep up with their thoughts.

That was one of the highlights of the weekend, for sure. That and I can’t stop playing with my ideablob putty!

Pictures, video and more, coming very soon!!

I was so excited last night when I realized it was 9 pm, I was all packed, my camera was charged and I had my list of things that I needed to gather in the morning.

And then the morning came.

I woke up later that I had planned/wanted.

We got to the airport with tons of time to spare, only for me to discover that I had left my passport - you know, the one thing that I absolutely had to make sure that I had -  at home.

Back in the car, and back to the apartment. Get passport, get back in the car, and make trip to the airport, redeux.

I was less than 2 minutes late to check in, and because I had luggage to check - something I think I’m going to be doing less and less of as I fly more - they wouldn’t let me on the flight. The guy who checked me in cheerfully told me that I’d have more time at the airport for lunch and stuff. Great, but I’d hoped to spend that time basking by the pool today.

I wasted time, checking email, responding to texts and twittering. I got a bad bento box, and a chair massage (which wasn’t at all worth it. It was more like a clumsy teenage boy trying to give his first girlfriend a massage) and headed over to the small airport bar to grab a drink.

And then I heard the gate call my name.  “Paging passenger Coplick”

Awwwww CRAP!

Luckily, I was close to the gate, so my sprint was a short one. I sorta slept on the flight, and now, I’m in Phoenix. Warm and similar to Vegas, but not quite what I had in mind for this weekend.

They’re boarding my flight now, and I’m waiting for as long as I can to give my battery as much of a chance to charge as I can. Annnnd there’s my zone being called.

At least next time you hear from me, I’ll actually be in Vegas for ideablob, instead of en route still.

Back when my people started talking about going to BlogWorldExpo, I knew I had to find a way to get there. So, I started thinking about ways to do that. I was talking to Lucretia one night and she suggested that ideablob might be interested in some content creation and visibility at the event.

So, I put together a little profile, a little presentation and a little bit of a suggestion and sent it off to darling Annie.

A few days later, I had an agreement, I had a plan an Annie and I were going over talking points.

So, next Thursday, I head down to Blogworld Expo to talk to everyone there about ideablob and what they do. So what do they do?

Well, essentially, idealob is a community of people who share ideas: business owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, philanthropists, nonprofits, free-thinkers and problem-solvers and the like. They post, comment, advise, critique, and compare ideas.  Every month, they decide through voting which idea is worthy of $10,000 in seed money.  ideablob gives ‘blobbers’ the tools and resources for this culture and philosophy to flourish.

What would you do with $10,000 in seed money? Leave a comment here or, better yet, come and find me at BlogWorldExpo and tell me in person!