nerd’s eye view

Crowded House

July 27, 2007 – 2:37 pm | by nerd's eye view

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Have I mentioned that I really don’t like crowds? I might have. Finding myself in a room with over 700 people overwhelms me. Nearly all of the people are women, I’m guessing all of them are bloggers. I head straight for a mostly empty table where one of the lone guys sits. If I understood correctly, he’s at the conference in a professional capacity - he’s there to explore the question of corporate bloggers. Apparently this is the new things - companies think they need a blog, though they’re not sure why. He’s also there to meet Birdie, quite a fine writer. I’m delighted to be able to introduce the two of them when, by happy accident, Birdie sits down at our table.

We’re all strangers; it’s mostly comfortable chatter. After breakfast, we do a round of speed dating style introductions - I find this interesting and fun. I don’t want to talk to people that blog about sex, but I meet a woman who says she blogs about sex and cupcakes. I am for both things, though I am considerably more at ease talking about cupcakes. The cupcake woman knows about Seattle’s Cupcake Royale, though not about the other place that makes cupcakes in my ‘hood. It’s just as well, their cupcakes can’t hold a candle to those at Cupcake Royale.

I meet a woman who’s recently written quite a bit about her travels in Berlin and Israel - I’m keen to read her work. Another woman tells me she has an old time movie and radio podcast and my iPod is loaded with that stuff, so I’m psyched for that. I talk up Soup Swap to the foodies, my travel stuff to others. I don’t know how many people I met, only a few of them leave a lasting impression. That’s fine as I hardly expect to connect with everyone I meet.

After breakfast I try to attend one session - it’s full to bursting. I think about sitting on the floor and do so for about 10 minutes, but then I give up and go to a tech session where there’s lots of room. I give up on this session too because, of all things, it’s simultaneously too technical and not technical enough. At lunch I sit at the travel table and that’s fun, I spend a little time talking to a nice gal from Japan who tells me I need to check out her Japanese culture blog, and to two other women who are well traveled, writers, and, crazily enough, both really interested in military history. Then I head up to another stuffed to bursting session. I give up.

I stuff all my swag in to my pack, take the camera, and promenade. The conference is at the Navy Pier and tour boats are coming and going. The whole place is an outdoor bar, so people are strolling along the seawall with cocktails in hand. There’s a bandstand, a ferris wheel, fun house mirrors, souvenirs… everything I expect to see. Tour boats head out across the turquoise water of the lake. I decide to walk back to the hotel, even though what I should do is brave the crowds again and try to attend another session. Instead, I look in the windows of galleries and restaurants. There’s a Japanese place with minimalist decor, the seating is little white ottomans and Danish style square tables. There’s an Italian place with carnival masks flanking the entry way. A dad is dropping his two little girls off at the movie theater and is instructing them, in exhaustive detail, about what, exactly they are to do when the movie gets out. Across the street from that, a butcher is unpacking plastic shrinkwrapped packages of raw ribs. There’s a lot to see. The city is tall, really tall, and noisy, and here and there are old water towers on the rooftops, a sight that makes no sense to me. Even though it’s 80 degrees and quite muggy, I’m easier wandering the streets than back in the conference hall.

I hear tell that you get out of these things what you put into them. I have rather enjoyed the hallway conversations, the one on ones, the lunch dates. But the too small halls packed to standing room only leave me wishing I was outside, seeing other things. I’m making an effort to talk to people, to find out what they’re doing that’s so interesting, but I’m already so outside of my element in attending this conference at all. When I realize that I’m full, that I need a stroll and a nap, I clear off. Back at the hotel, looking at the women in the lobby with their BlogHer swag, I see I’m not the only one.