I ended the last post with the line “maybe it’s time for another local blogging meetup…” and then realized that I never wrote about the last Syracuse blogging meetup we had; ugh! I’m usually better than that, but no sense in crying over spilt milk, right?

blogging get together 01

I love going to things like this, even though in some ways it’s against my nature. I’m not the best networking person in the world. One might not believe it by seeing how much I write but in person I easily withdraw from what might be considered social events… even if they’re related to business.

Yet, I’ve found that there are two types of networking events where I’ve been pretty good at talking to people. One revolves around “tweetups” and the other around blogging.

It’s probably because those are two areas I engage with people most often. Obviously I love blogging, but I also love when I have the time to hang out on Twitter. I even love it more when it involves local people because from my perspective I don’t know a lot of local folks. One would think that after more than 40 years in this area my address book would be filled; nope!

Thus, I decided to write about 5 things I love about blogging get togethers, with a twist. I’m putting the name Syracuse in it for two reasons. One, it’s kind of clickbait; I’m not ashamed. lol The second is that I’ve been to a few of them and written about them (though I missed the last one), so it not only gives me the chance to link back to the others but to share a couple of pictures from the last one. 🙂

1. You meet new people

Our last get together was at Spaghetti Warehouse, and I’m the guy who selected it. My thinking is that its bar area is expansive and it’s a great place to eat dinner afterwards if one is so inclined.

I feel like I got lucky because, though only 10 people showed up, 3 of them were new to the initial group, and it’s always great meeting new people. One had been blogging for a while, whereas the other was thinking about starting up. All of us had a good time interacting with each other and got to share our blog links. Whether anyone other than me checked everyone out I’m not sure, but in my opinion it’s always great meeting other people who either love blogging or are looking to see what others like myself have to say about it.

2. You get to go to new places

blogging get together 2

I have to admit that I’d been to all the places we’ve had the blogging get together’s to this point but not everyone had. The place we went to before Spaghetti Warehouse was at the Syracuse CoWorks location, which most of the people in the room had never even heard of. In my opinion there’s no better way of learning more about Syracuse than in working hard to creatively find new places to meet and hopefully talk about in one’s blog.

As far as I can remember, we’ve also been to Al’s Wine & Spirits and…ugh; I can’t remember the name of the other place near Armory Square. There were a couple while I was in Memphis that I missed but I’m sure those places were new to someone at the time.

3. You get to learn about a lot of new things

At one of the blogging events I met a guy who likes cooking gourmet foods I won’t eat and desserts I might eat but that he doesn’t. At another I met someone who’s beginning to become quite popular across the country by talking about ways to save money and maximize personal finances but was just getting started at that time. There were also a couple of people who were designers which I thought was pretty cool.

Photographers, writers, health nuts… it’s all pretty cool stuff!

4. You get to talk about blogging!

I have to admit that this is one of my favorite things. I write about blogging all the time but it’s not often that I get to talk to people in person about it, and have other people who actually blog to talk back. It’s fun to compare notes about the writing process, the making money process, the research process and the images process… heck, it’s all fun, unless we discover someone is stealing other’s content… luckily we haven’t had to go there yet. lol

5. It’s free!

Well, at least it can be. If you don’t drink it’s definitely free. At our CoWorks tweetup someone brought subs that were cut in many smaller pieces so food was free. All it takes it a bit of initiative to hop in the car, go to the location, get out of the car, go inside, introduce yourself and start talking. In this case, for once, no matter what anyone does everyone in the room has a shared interest. What can be easier and more fun than that?