At every conference I have ever attended I’ve been loaded down with Swag. I have to pack separate bags just to take it home and sometimes I even have to ship it home. It takes me a while to go through all of it and make follow ups with all the great people that gave me things so I apologize for this post being rather late. However, the swag I’m talking about is not what you think.

Swag I received from IZEAFest 2009

Compassion – One panel got rough twitter reviews and even spawned a terrible and ugly twitter flame war. It showed class on Ted Murphy’s (@tedmurphy) part to have Sarah Austin (@pop17) come back up to speak. I gave her one of my water bottles and felt that she was not at all impressed by my swag or me. To be honest I felt that she looked me the water bottle and me as if we were some sort of dead rat. Of course this was right after she went back up before the crowd which was still a bit hostile towards her so I can understand that she might have been a bit upset. I did tell her how I felt that it took courage to come back up in front of a tough room. I felt that she didn’t care however Sarah dropped over and commented on my blog recently and we had a short e-mail discussion. I think that Sarah is a good person and unfortunately she came across poorly in her panel. However, she is someone who is making it online and does have good knowledge. So my inspiration for the swag of compassion comes from this whole interaction.

Friendship – I had an incredible time making new friends instantly: Buck Daddy (@buckdaddy), David Meyers (@ragingtech), Alan Parker (@foralanssake), Dwan Perrin (@MommaDJane), Christa Watson (@chirstawatson), Omarr Cantu (@omarrcantu), Kelly “PegLegPug” Walker (@peglegpug), John Raser (@JohnRaser), Rob and Melinda (@LkWhtMomFound) (@and_Dad_too), Steven (@steven_sanders) and Ashley Sanders (@bossanders), Meredith (@craftyGAgal), Craig Murphy (@cramur), John King (@Jking89), Juliet and Vanessa of PokenGirl (@PokenGirl) all became immediate close friends.

Also connecting with friends that I’ve made over time. Friends like: Missy Ward (@MissyWard)David Risley (@DavidRisley), David Brim (@David BrimCourtney Benefiel (@ridetoremedy), Jennifer Leet (@jentifa), Pat Curry (@catpurry), Danna Crawford (@powersellingmom), Tim Jones (@TheRealTimJones), Connie Roberts (@conniefoggles) Trevor Griffin (@magical_trevor), Andrew Beard (@anoo), Ashley Edwards (@Social_Citizen), Ted Murphy (@tedmurphy), Heather in BC (@heatherinbc), Elizabeth Edwards (@Table4Five), Brett Bumeter (@BrettBumeter), Christine Brandt (@starryskye81), Lisa Martin (@blm03), Eric Schechter (@ericschechter), Michael Daoud (@xshot), Marty Smith (@MartyatIZEA), Travis Andrews, Stephanie Lichtenstein (@MicroSteph), Famous Blogger Murray Newlands (@murraynewlands), Carrie Bright (@brightgirl), Veronique , Crystal (@CrystalDuncan), Annie (@AnnieElizabeth), Dina Riccobono (@dinariccs), Martha Decker (@MarDeck), the list continues to go on and on, so I apologize if I did not name you directly.

The friend that gave so much and showed amazing love for us was Maureen (@motarpey). She gave up her time in order to watch our daughter Eva for three days so Allison and I could enjoy IZEAFest without worrying that Eva was missing us or if she was safe. Auntie Mo took care of everything. Sadly she was rewarded for that kindness with some atrocious customer service from the Renaissance Orlando.

Inspiration – There were so many inspirational speakers during IZEAFest. I was most impressed with Aaron Brazell (@TechnoSailor) in his first Keynote. He gave us bloggers so much meat to chew on in his keynote that I even ended up starting a little Man-Crush on him. Aaron is certainly a person who is personable. He went out of his way to say hello to me even before he had ever met me or heard of me. Of course I was surprised that he had heard of me in the first place.

Chris Brogan’s (@ChrisBrogan) keynote was equally inspiring in a different way. Where Aaron’s keynote made us look within ourselves Chris’s keynote held us to dig deep and engage our audiences and build communities. Chris is a master of creating community. If you are not signed up for his newsletter then rush out and do it right now. Chris’s newsletter is an inspiration and each one feels like he is talking directly to me. Really that is a great feeling. Chris extends that well beyond the online life. Each time he sees me he says hello and says something funny and clever. He is all about building community. That was inspiring. It inspired me to start my own newsletter.

Generosity – I was floored by the incredible amounts of generosity from so many people. Ted Murphy immediately comes to mind in that he was incredibly generous to totally redesign my blog and also give me beautiful business cards. He also showed tremendous generosity in revealing that design during his opening keynote speech. He single handedly propelled the notoriety of my blog through the roof. I was incredibly humbled by his generosity.

So many other people showed great generosity to me and my family including Dina Riccobono, Michael Daoud, Dwan Perrin, and Jennifer Leet. Because of them I had to ship an entire box of swag home. Buck Daddy went and got me, Dwan and Alan front of the line passes at SeaWorld, that was quite generous as well.

Motivation – So many people motivated me to action like John Raser. John is a golfer and blogger who is such a personable and genuine person. I loved watching him speak during the 5 minutes of fame. His passion for what he is doing and his newness and freshness in the blogging world is very motivating. Murray Newlands is a man with a great passion to teach bloggers how to become better with very simple straightforward tips. He pulls people in to work with him and connects people together.

Humilty – During the convention so many people came up to me and said that they followed my blog and enjoyed my blog. I was incredibly humbled by those experiences. Then Thomas Thorspecken did a watercolor of the room at IZEAFest focusing on Allison and I, He captured our mannerisms and nuances in a beautiful way. I was also humbled by the sheer fervor of Tommy Fishback (@tommyfishback), a 14 year old entrepreneur who captured the hearts of the entire crowd by getting up for 5 minutes of fame where he told us about his facebook app called tagclass. He was fascinating and could easily keynote a future IZEAFest and he’s still in High School. The poise and polish and passion of Tommy made me look at my passion for my blogging work.

Thank you to everyone who had a part in making IZEAFEst 2009 one of my favorite weekends ever.

What swag did you come home with from IZEAFest 2009?

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Swag that I received from IZEAFest 2009

Photo-A-Day #1639

IZEAFest Day one was so action packed and so crazy that I lost my voice and got a little hung over for Day 2 but that is okay because Day 2 was all about listening for me. That was a good thing because my piece of junk laptop wouldn’t work right for me the whole day. I closed the lid, sat back and took in the information as it came at me.

First up was Aaron Brazell (@technosailor). I had first heard of Aaron back in December when IZEA worked with Sears on the Sears Grant-A-Wish program. I remember reading all of the posts from people who participated in this program and Aaron was obviously one of the $500 bloggers because he was able to help many people in his family as well as donate some toys to Toys for Tots. Aaron was also the guy who stopped and said hello to me poolside on Thursday before IZEAFest started. Those things stood out to me and I figured I’d give hm my full attention.

Am I ever glad that my laptop wasn’t working. Aaron was amazing. His session was out and out one of my absolute favorites. I liked how he rattled the cage and told many of us what we needed to hear rather than wanted to hear. The key thing that stood out to me was that as bloggers we are not owed anything by anyone. We should not expect to be compensated with free items just because we write about them on our blogs. His session was simple, straightforward and on more than one occasion the room was silent because we were all either in awe or seething because of what he was saying. I’d like to think that people were in rapt attention because of the great message Aaron was sharing with us.

After Aaron was my friend John Raser (@johnraser). John is a very engaging guy and he had a chance at 5 minutes of fame. Sure he used 8:43 of it to tell his story but it is a good story. John is a golfer and he is making his way to the PGA tour. And as he builds his golfing brand he is also building his online brand. John is one amazing guy and later that day he would amaze us once again by letting Heather (@HeatherinBC) and Dina Riccobono (@MLDina) shave his head for Locks for Love. I really couldn’t get used to seeing him with the shaved head. But it looked very cool.

The next session was with Liz Strauss. Now I know that she is highly respected and has done many great things, but I could not get into her session at all. I was just not engaged in what she was saying because she was everywhere and nowhere all at once. I’m sure that other people were enthralled but I just was not there.

We had another delicious lunch and then it was on to the afternoon sessions.

The afternoon session started with a panel that was moderated by my friend Brett Bumeter titled What Advertisers want. The panelists were George Smith, John Andrews, Joseph Jaffe and Zena Weist. This was one very good panel and I liked very much how Brett moderated it. Each person up there had some great things to say and I found it very useful.

The next session was one that I know that many people were waiting to see. And after having seen Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) at Affiliate Summit East I can understand why they were so excited. Chris Brogan did a session called Go Deep or Go Home. He cracked jokes, swore a lot and made everyone in the room think. I wonder if someone did an analysis of the twitter stream for the hashtag of #izeafest which session had the most quotable lines. I am willing to bet that Brogan’s gets that honor.

Once Chris was done we had another 5 minutes of fame and this one came out of nowhere. This kid named Tommy Fishback gets up (he’s 14 and had just herd about the event as he was going to SeaWorld) and he wows the entire room with his energy and enthusiasm but also with his knowledge of social media. Ted took him under his wing and introduced him around the place after that.

Our final session was the future of IZEA and the reveal of Sponzai. I’d been able to use Sponzai for a little while and was excited to see it revealed. Then Ted and Dan Rua were interviewed by Loren Feldman about the future of sponsored conversations, where we had been and where we were going. I have to say it was pretty dry. I would have liked to have had some sort of big bang ending and don’t even get me started with Feldman’s inability to pronounce IZEA correctly.

Directly after that things cleared out but there were cake plows. I spent my time cleaning up my space and also collecting many of my business cards from the tables. I had dropped one at each seat, I think I got half of them back, I figure, why waste them they are awesome and they were probably expensive.

We had a little time to change for the IZEAHunt. I was still dragging ass pretty bad. I could hardly speak, was a little nauseous and had a headache, perfect conditions for running around trying to win an insane scavenger hunt. I wanted to bail on it but didn’t want to let my teammates Alan, MommaDjane, Buck Daddy, Raging Tech and Pat Curry down.

The hunt started pretty good, we immediately covered our faces with the face paint and made a mascot and started making the videos. Then we went and started getting many of the videos and pictures that were required, saving the human sundae till the end. Human sundae was my role last year and I brought gross clothes in case it was going to be me again this year. Luckily Alan took one for the team.

IZEAHunt was not really that fun because the security guards at Port Orlando were certainly not keen on us having face paint or masks or making any sort of mess. In fact they pretty much shut us down and we had to clean up the mess. I will say this I was very impressed with how Ted handled this getting right out there and cleaning things up. I wasn’t going to stand idly by so I pitched in as well. Quite a few other people did too.

That night we went to Howl At The Moon, this was a dueling piano bar. We must have gotten there early because we were directed inside rather than to the outside area that was set up for us. Eventually Allison and I made our way out there. While we were outside we met Thomas Thorspecken who was at IZEAFest. He was quietly in one corner doing watercolors and he made the most fantastic watercolor of Allison and I at IZEAFest. He caught our mannerisms perfectly. We thanked him for that and expressed how much we loved the watercolor. Then we headed back to the hotel, tired and ready to face SeaWorld tomorrow.

Today’s photo is of the big screen that would be running video photos and occasionally images of the sponsors. I was a sponsor and figured that I kept missing seeing my logo on the screen. I shot a note over to Trevor and asked him if I was missing my logo or if I wasn’t included. I found out that my logo had been left out as an oversight. I wasn’t mad or anything but I was grateful to the guys running the technical aspects of the show for correcting that oversight. I picked this photo because it was the first time I had sponsored anything. I used my own money for it as well as for prizes and all my BenSpark.com swag like fortune cookies, shirts, hats and water bottles. I don’t know if people knew that or they figured that that stuff was part of the the package of stuff from Ted Murphy and my blog redesign. It wasn’t. Ted was more then generous with his time and talent as well as for getting me some great business cards.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

IZEAFest 2009: Day 2

Photo-A-Day #1638

Months of waiting, preparing and blogging lead up to IZEAFest 2009. This was going to be the biggest event for me all year. It did not disappoint. I had known a few of the secrets going into this event because one of them you can see right now in this blog. Ted Murphy CEO of IZEA redesigned BenSpark.com, created my logo and propelled my overall brand to the next level.

I was like a kid on Christmas on the first morning of IZEAFest 2009. I got up early and loaded up the Ford Flex (we rented this and I loved it. Ford is not sponsoring me to say this at all. We may actually look into buying one.) Anyway, I got up loaded up the car and headed over to SeaWorld’s Ports of Call to start a great first day of IZEAFest. This would prove to be the most informative and exciting events I’ve ever been to. I was a little tired from the event at Busch Gardens the night before. Howl-O-Scream wasn’t really that scary for me overall and I enjoyed it. I loved the bus rides back and forth too because I got a chance to chat with so many fun bloggers.

The IZEA Insiders were asked to help out with registration so that was one reason that I got there early. The other was to get a seat right up front because I like to be as engaged in the event as possible. I got there picked out seats for us, Allison and I that is. I made 3 trips out to the car to bring in everything. First up were some Swag Bags that I made up for various people including the three Winners of BenSpark’s Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack. Those folks were Dwan, Buck and Melinda (more about them later). I also made up bags for Ted, and Ashely for everything that they did for me all year and Trevor and Andrew because they supported me all along and are good friends. Also Michael from Xshot. Michael and I have been friends for a long time and I wanted to give him a special bag of goodies.

At my table It looked a technological bomb went off. I had things spread across and entire 8 foot table. I brought so much gear and was going to do some live broadcasting but that never materialized because the computer I had is a piece of junk. The good thing about that was that I was able to focus on the speakers. I never did get to the registration table to help out. I was too busy giving out swag and setting up my base camp. I felt a little guilty about that but then the event began.

IZEAFest began with Craig Murphy coming on stage as his brother Ted Murphy. He did this great impression of Ted and then we saw the TV screen show Ted breaking out of his bonds int he back room and escaping and then heading to the stage. It was a riot. Prior to the keynote Heather in BC had made up about 30 “tedheads” and every time Ted said “Personal Brand” we were to raise our Tedheads. It was funny but we stopped quickly because it was throwing off his great presentation. This presentation was the one that I had been waiting for for months on end and it was finally here. You see Ted Murphy himself redesigned this blog and was highlighting my personal brand in his presentation. I was honored and so humbled that he choose me and my blog to do this amazing redesign. Ted created my logo with the “cameraman – as Eva calls him” as well as my new twitter background and this entire theme. I am so happy for such generosity.

After Ted’s presentation we were treated to 5 minutes of fame by my friend and famous blogger Murray Newlands. Murray talked about how blogging is all about conversation. Murray made some excellent points in his 5 minutes. He is one guy who really knows his stuff.

Taking the stage after Murray was Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com. Brian Clark has one of those voices that you can listen to for hours on end. I love his videos and his delivery. If you want to hear more watch the video about Thesis as well as the video about Teaching sells. You will be enthralled by the sound of his voice. I told him that later in the night after a few cherry vodka shots with Ted Murphy.

For lunch we were treated to lunch with Shamu which was a presentation by SeaWorld about how they have developed their brand. It started a little dry but then they brought in Clyde one of their Sea Lions as well as Lucky a sloth and then a parrot a bald eagle and an armadillo. It was really cool to get up close and personal with the animals and the trainers. Sea World really bent over backwards for us and this event and I certainly appreciated it. I also loved being able to have some of the Shamu ice cream bars as well. They are wicked tasty.

After lunch we had a panel presentation called screen gems. I was not impressed. And for the most part twitter during that presentation was exploding with how people were not impressed with one of the speakers. I tried to give this presentation my full attention but could not. I really felt bad for moderator Warren Sutton.

After that there was another 5 minutes of fame and this time it was Michael from Xshot who got up and revealed a few new items that were in the works. One of the items was a pocket sized Xshot. He showed everyone the prototype I was lucky enough to get one of them (there are only 6 out there). I need to test t out more but I love the new size.

Up next on the agenda was the Rockstars of SEO session. I went outside for this one and met up with Vanessa and Juliet of PokenGirl. They were given a five minutes of fame spot directly after this session. It was great to see them again and they asked me to help out during their presentation. I was to give up four pokens to people in the audience. Their presentation was a very good one too. They stayed around for the rest of the day because we were the sponsors for Karaoke at ICEBAR tonight.

After PokenGirl we were treated to a fantastic session by Sarah Evans about building a personal brand on twitter. Sarah is a wonderful person and I look forward to dining with her at Blog World Expo. Buck Daddy hooked me up with a meal with Sarah and some other great people.

The last session of the day was a panel discussion called Social Media Promotion. Some real heavy hitters in this one and the information was fantastic.

After the sessions wrapped up for the day Allison, Eva, Maureen and I went to Maggianos for dinner. We sat with Lisa, Christine, Michael, Alan and Dwan. Maggianos is a nice Italian restaurant. Dina from MarketLeverage asked us if we wanted to go. There were a ton of people in our party and we did a family style meal. It was nice sharing with everyone and playing with the pocket Xshot that Michael had given me.

After Dinner we went to a big time party at ICEBAR Orlando. This is a very cool (no pun intended) place that has an actual bar room made from solid ICE. You have to put on parkas in order to get into this place. The glasses were made from ice and there were seats made from ice. It was very very fun in there. We went in for a little while and then back out to the main bar area because karaoke was about to start. Vanessa and Juliet of PokenGirl and I had decided way back that we wanted to sponsor an event at IZEAFest, so we ended up sponsoring karaoke. I supplied BenSpark.com water bottles as well as $50 iTunes gift cards for the winning male and winning female singers. We also gave out prizes to the winning duets and the winning groups. It was a fun event and there were some awesome singers.

The winning female singer was Sarah Evans. She was wonderful. I ended up singing twice. Once I sand Wilson Phillips “Hold On” which I was supposed to sing with Ted Murphy but he bailed. The other one that I sand was “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” I sang that with Jennifer Leet of The Dirty Shirt. We had so much fun but lost our voices for the next few days.

After all the karaoke singers finished I ended up hanging out with Ted Murphy and crew while Allison went back to the hotel. I did not get sick but I will never drink cherry vodka again. In all it was a fantastic day.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

IZEAFest 2009: Day 1

Photo-A-Day #1629

I packed up my clothes and stuff like that last night, packing clothes is easy for me. Also there is the fact that we are staying with Allison’s parents for part of the trip so we can wash clothes. So I really only have to pack half of what I need to take and even then I probably packed too many shirts as I’ve got some waiting for me at Dan and Marcia’s and I am sure we’ll be getting some great ones at IZEAFest.

The stuff you see in the photo is some swag I am bringing, mind you this is not the awesome stuff I’ve been hinting at over at I’m Not A Famous Blogger, no this is the homemade stuff as well as a few pokens that are still kicking around.

Short post tonight as I still have to pack and catch Modern Family on the DVR as it is 1/2way over at the writing of this post.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Packing for Vacation

20 days from today I’m going to be boarding a SouthWest Airlines Flight with my active toddler daughter, Eva and my wife, Allison. We’ll be heading down to visit with Allison’s parents and have a vacation with them before we drive on up to Orlando for IZEAFest 2009. So now is the time for us to really think about what to pack… for IZEAFest!

Back in April I wrote a blog post entitled 10 Essential Items for IZEAFest 2009. Since then I’ve decided to change them up a bit. I’ll be giving many of these items to MommaDJane (@MommaDJane), Buck “Daddy” (@BuckDaddy) and Melinda (@LkWhtMomFound) because they won my Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Packs.

10. XShot – I love this device. It is a camera extender that allows you to extend the camera away from you 37″ and get a great shot of you with the people around you. I make use of this device all the time and I have some to give away at IZEAFest. And I am so happy that XShot (@xshot) is a sponsor for IZEAFest as well. I had the XShot 1st and have given it to over 24 great bloggers so far. Ted Murphy received one from me and it is no coincidence that this great device has made its way all over IZEA and even to IZEAFest. Without it how could I have gotten this great shot with Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It and all around awesome guy. Oh and he does a little wine related podcast too.

9. BluFrog Energy Drink – I no longer have any BluFrog. I want more. There will be some at IZEAFest. So I luckily don’t have to pack any. The weight limit for the suitcases might be a bit tough. So I bet that MommaDJane is probably going to want to pack a second suitcase to haul back her free case that she won courtesy of Martha Decker (@MarDeck)!

What I can bring with me on the plane however is the Energy Drink EBOOST (@EBOOST). I have 100 packets to give away at IZEAFest and luckily they were shipped down to the in-laws because 100 packets would also take up a bunch of room but 2 or 3 can easily be taken with you anywhere.

8. ZINK Paper - I like doing things differently. One thing I really enjoy is giving a very personal touch to the people that I meet. At conferences I have brought with me a a Polaroid Pogo, my Canon SD800is and my XShot to take pictures with people. Then I print the image out, remove the back of the ZINK paper and stick it to my business card. That way the person has both my business card and a photo of themselves with me. It impressed a few people at Affiliate Summit East. By doing this it really made the interaction so personal and gave me at least a minute or two to talk with each person while the image printed. This is how I use ZINK Paper.

7. Business Cards POKENS – Right before Affiliate Summit East I created 1000 business cards, last minute, rush order. Sure they are great when paired with my PoGo and ZINK paper however they are pretty much useless now for anything but that because I now have a Poken. What is a Poken? It is a digital business card that allows you to slap “High 4″ with other Poken owners. You instantly connect and pass your business cards to each other. Put the USB portion of the Poken (stealthily hidden within the body of the Poken) into your computer and you can pull up the cards of all the people that you just met. You have instant connections to their profiles on many social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linked In (You must still friend each person in the regular manner of each platform).

I got so excited about Pokens that I bought a case of them and gave some away but I may have a few to give out at IZEAFest. You can certainly try to win one at the Karaoke contest sponsored by Me and PokenGirl (@PokenGirl). at ICEBAR on Friday Night. And if you are down in the Boynton Beach Area meet us at Bru’s Room for Wings and Pings night.

6. Portable Hard Drive – A small portable hard drive is a perfect thing to have with you because you can take a ton of photos and a ton of video and never have to worry about running out of space. I have a SimpleTech 320GB hard drive that weighs so little and is so small.

You don’t want to run out of space when you get that great video interview with Missy Ward or Chris Brogan.

I wasn’t able to get one of these for the winner of the Ultimate IZEAFest PRize PAck Contest but I did get a cool device called the CinemaCube. I got some help from one of my “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” crew members, Jennifer Leet (@jentifa. Jennifer is the queen of contests and she connected with one of her sponsors, BriteView, (@BriteView to get a Cinema Cube to add to the Ultimate IZEAFest Prize Pack.

5. Swag – #5 had been power but I ditched that for the very cool swag that I will be bringing with me. I can’t quite reveal what I’m bringing. I want it to be a surprise. I can tell you that what I chose to put my new logo on is something that people will use every day, multiple times. Althought I will make sure that I pack my Targus power adapter. With it I can power up my computer and peripherals in the car, at the wall socket and even on the plane.

4. Digital Camera – The one thing that I really wanted to provide the winner of the Ultimate IZEAFest prize pack. A Digital Camera is essential for blogging conferences. Photos make the event so much better. So many cool things happen at blogger conferences and you are going to make so many great friends. So what better accessory to go with the XShot than a digital camera to capture everything. I did however get a sponsor with a brand new product to help enhance your existing camera. The device is a called a Flipbac (@flipbac) which is an angled viewfinder and LCD screen protector for digital cameras.

3. Netbook – Portability and battery life are the two biggest concerns when at a blog conference, you don’t want to be weighed down with a ton of stuff and you don’t want to lose power when you have that great tweet to post.

I really wanted the winner to receive a netbook and I was so fortunate to hook up with the generous help of Dina Riccobono (@MLDina) and MarketLeverage (@MarketLeverage) who provided me with the major prizes of an Asus Eee PC 1000HA netbook.

2. Flip Mino HD – HD is where it is at. And the Flip is a perfect device to have with you at a blog conference, it is small, it fits in your pocket and powers up so quickly. I have one and Allison has one. I’ve used it for a ton of things and it fits great on the XShot. I even won another one at Affiliate Summit East. But it can no way compare to the coolness that is the the Flip Mino HD that MommaDJane is going to get. It is a custom made co-branded one with two of the best logos around. Check it out!

1 – A Sense of Fun, An Open Mind and a Great Attitude – IZEAFest 2009 is going to be the most fun, informative and exciting events you have ever been to or will attend this year. This will only be topped by IZEAFest 2010. However this cannot be the best time ever with out the essential items from #1 on this list, everything else is cool stuff to have but the number one essential is truly… essential. You are going to have the rare intimate opportunity to spend time with some of the best minds in blogging today. Approach the conference with a great attitude, a sense of fun and an open mind and you will have the time of your life.

So is that the definitive list? No, there are many other great things to bring, why don’t you let me know what some of them are in the comments.

I figure that by now most people have gotten their ticket to IZEAFest 2009 but if you haven’t go and click the IZEAFest logo on the top left sidebar. I’ve been talking about IZEAFest 2009 since IZEAFest 2008 and many people have clicked the link. Yet no one has made their purchase with me. So if you would like to help me help defray the cost of #5 on this list (I went way over budget on the swag I bought) please buy your ticket to IZEAFest through me. You can even use the promo code “Sponsoredtweets” for 50% off the ticket price. That is even a better deal than the early bird prices.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Packing 10 Essential Items for IZEAFest