I have to admit that I don't go to a lot of technology conferences. It's not that I am not interested, on the contrary, I'd love to be able to attend each and every one of them. The problem is that I am in the situation that many other bloggers (especially women and people of color) are trapped in : We don't make enough money out of blogging to be able to afford a conference budget.

It's not just the airfare and hotel and the conference fee. As a working mother who is self-employed and has 2 children, traveling to conferences is not only absolutely prohibitive if I do so out of pocket. It's the emotionally draining logistics of who's going to take care of my children while am away. Unfortunately, in a city like New York not having family available or a nanny on payroll is a HUGE child-care liability.

So the few conferences I get to go am either paid to go because I am on a panel or I get to go to them because they're local enough (meaning a train ride away).

Outside of RootsCamp NYC (which happened 2 years ago) and this year's PodCamp NYC, there's not much for free or affordable the techie and geeky at heart here in NYC. Well, at least not much new to me because if I were to include some of the stuff happening at Eyebeam, well, yeah, that's geeky enough.

Which is why going to PDF is such a joy.

I get to see a lot of colleagues with whom I would otherwise would never get to have face to face time unless I went all the way out west. People like Tara Hunt, Mary Hodder, the infamous and yet enjoyable Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble, Cheryl Contee, and the inimitable Robert Greenwald.

Then there's others that I seem to bump into no matter what like Craig Newmark, Joe Trippi, Elizabeth Edwards (who was in video but not in the flesh) and Arianna Huffington.

One of the best women presenters in the geekosphere : Zephyr Teachout

From the East Coast, well, I always get to play (or smack upside the head) at these conferences with people like Deanna Zandt, Noel Hidalgo, Ben Smith, Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Bob Fertik, Heather Holdridge, Nicco Melle, Ruby Seinrich, Morra Arons, Harish Rao, Lynn D. Johnson, Tracy Russo, Nancy Scola, Joshua Levy, Roberto Lovato, Nicola Wells, Ari Melber, Scott Heifferman, Chuck DeFeo, Zephyr Teachout, Zack Exley , Andy Carvin, Bob Cox, Ed Cone and the PDF crew.

I missed Shireen, Baratunde, Jon Lebkowsky, Aldon Hynes, Chris Rabb and Christian Crumlish. I don't remember if Steve Garfield was there, which is weird because he always makes it to PDF. And I know I kept missing Jason Barnett, David All and Patrick Ruffini. Damn!

I met a lot of people and honestly, am going to have to go through cards to remember their names but Lisa Votino, Megan Morrissey, PB Ranter and Erin Hoeftig come to mind.

The Axis of Political Journalism Evil : José Antonio Vargas (Washington Post) and Ben Smith (Politico.com)

Finally meeting Leighton Woodhouse of Brave New Films was a treat; but meeting Jose Antonio Vargas was an extra special treat because I got to terrorize him --he knows what for and now he owes me big time (mwahaha!)

Anyhow, I love being there the two days and I actually feel like the panel I was in --on local political blogging-- was actually quite productive. A lot good questions from people with agita over how to measure success on a blog that may not have massive traffic numbers. It was good because we really were able to parse out influence from popularity and offer actual markers of success for other people to gauge their own work and make it better. And yes, I'll blog about that soon.

Ok, now on to the videos --yes, I was able to get some good video clips.

BRB