Andrea Weckerle, who is leading the legal topic has posted about the session on her blog. She wants to know what your concerns are so she can begin to compile specific information for the session.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 01:19 PM | Permalink

As you can see from the Attendees page, the registrations keep rolling in for BlogOrlando. Here's a breakdown of how many people are attending the various activities:

• Thursday Dinner: 22
• Friday Conference: 36
• Friday Dinner: 31
• Saturday Theme Park: 17
• Sunday Theme Park: 8

Total Attendees: 39

If you haven't registered yet, get on over to the very short registration page and Git-R-Done! ^[1]

^[1] - Larry the Cable Guy has his history in Orlando so I feel some strange desire to use his catch phrase.

Posted by Chris Scott at 12:58 PM | Permalink

This past weekend I went to BlogHer and attempted to spend quite a bit of my time observing the conference format/style in advance of BlogOrlando. Currently at BlogOrlando we're thinking about doing 30 minute sessions, but I think that might not be enough. BlogHer had sessions that lasted 1.5 hours which I thought was a bit too longer, so perhaps one hour is the sweet spot.

However, I don't want to remove any sessions, so we might run two sets at certain points and allow folks to choose which ones they want to attend. This solves a problem I have been facing, i.e. folks might not be interested in a single track. I am scheduled to visit the venue this week and look things over. If we can split things up successfully then I will move forward with that plan. If we do run concurrent sessions then I will be adding a few new topics/leaders.

More to come soon.....

Posted by Josh Hallett at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Saturday will be spent at the Magic Kingdom, but where should we go on Sunday? The other park options are: EPCOT, MGM Studios or Animal Kingdom. Remember that Animal Kingdom closes early every day, but they do have Expedition Everest.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Nicole Simon has asked where should she stay? Downtown Orlando or at one of the Disney hotels? For those not familiar with the area, Disney is not Orlando :-) Walt Disney World is about a 15-20 minute drive from downtown Orlando (depending on traffic).

The events on Thursday and Friday will be taking place in the downtown/Winter Park area, while Saturday and Sunday are at Disney. Perhaps poor planning on my part, but finding a cool meeting location that offers free wifi like Rollins and is close to the parks is difficult.

One option is to pick a location and stay there the entire time, the other is to switch hotels for the weekend. Switching hotels might be tough to do though. Here are the pros/cons:

Downtown
Pro - close to the action on Thursday/Friday
Pro - cheaper hotel rates
Pro - Might be able to car-pool to Disney
Pro/Con - You have to drive to Disney on Sat/Sun but it's weekend traffic
Con - You miss some 'on property' Disney benefits
Con - driving anywhere after a long day at the the parks

Disney
Pro - close to the parks for the weekend
Pro - 'on property' benefits
Con - you have to drive to downtown during rush hour for event

Those that are coming in with family might want to coordinate hotel stays that way you can benefit from car-pooling and shared baby-sitting resources :-)

What else am I missing? Feel free to comment away.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you plan on writing, photographing, podcasting, vlogging anything about BlogOrlando please be sure to tag your stuff 'blogorlando'. During the event we'll set-up some aggregate feeds to pull in all related content.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have posted the initial list of BlogOrlando Sessions with their respective discussion leaders. Some of the minor details might change, but you know how that is. I haven't determined the exact batting order, but that will come in a day or two.

In the next few weeks I'll be posting in detail on each one of the topics.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 09:06 PM | Permalink

BlogOrlando, a waste of time and money? That's what Andrew asks if you read the headline of his post over at Business Blog Consulting. The post is really about the unconference format, rather than BlogOrlando, so the headline is a bit misleading.

The discussion started with his post, so I have commented over there. If you want to share your thoughts feel free to do the same.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 04:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jeremy Harrington created a number of different logo sizes as well as a cool "I'll be there" button for your blog. If you're coming to BlogOrlando be sure to spread the word.

Posted by Josh Hallett at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Looks like I might need to invite Mike Manuel to speak at BlogOrlando in September. With his spoof of the Budweiser 'Real Men of Genius' commercial he shows that he 'gets' the unconference format :-)

Today we solute you, Mr. A-List Blogger Keynote Speaker.

Blogging may have made you famous, but speaking will make you infamous.

You, bastion of the unkeynote, take to the stage, projecting to everyone in attendance that you're fully prepared to waste their time.

[chorus: you're in the Technorati 100!!]

Posted by Josh Hallett at 09:15 AM | Permalink

My design pal Jeremy Harrington has created a new logo for BlogOrlando. As a quick reminder, BlogOrlando is an unconference that I am organizing in Orlando, FL. The event dates are September 22-24, 2006. The unconference will be held on Friday the 22nd and we'll be spending the rest of the weekend hanging out at the theme parks.

You can visit BlogOrlando for all the details and check out the attendee list. Of course you can also register online :-)

Posted by Josh Hallett at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)