Alt for Everyone

                  

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was participating in an online blog conference called Alt for Everyone. It's an online version of THE blog conference to go to called Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City (and now New York and San Francisco). It's perfect for a gal like me who can't travel to the big meetings...and frankly I'm such an introvert I'd probably hide in the corner and not meet as many people in person as I was able to from the safety of my computer keyboard.

The classes were all an hour long, and ranged from Photoshop to branding to graphic design. I took 7 classes over 3 days, and two weeks later I'm still digesting everything I learned and trying to figure out how to apply it to the blog. I'm feeling really inspired, but still a little overwhelmed by all that I could do with this little blog of mine.

Bear with me-this post is less a recap and more about keeping myself accountable. If I tell you all how excited I am to step up my blogging game then I'm more likely to follow through.

I realized in the midst of the conference that I'm ready to start moving towards a more professional attitude towards Hearth and Homefront. Right now I tend to post a few days a week when I have time, but I'm ready to start implementing an editorial calendar and a real posting schedule. The ongoing series I started have made those days much easier to write and create. I want to be that organized on the other days too!

I'm also ready to start pulling the look of the blog together into a cohesive brand. I've been doing this for almost a year, so I'm figuring out what I like on my site and what needs to change (the Blogger comment tool is at the top of that list by the way!) You can see from the picture above my notes are turning into lots of brainstorming lists!

The best thing about Alt though? The networking. I have a massive word document of cut and pasted blog rolls from the classes, and I've already been able to connect with some fabulous people. It's probably going to take another week or so to check them all out, but man there are some crazy talented bloggers out there!

Someday I'll get to the in-person conferences, but right now this is perfect for me. I can't wait for the next one, and in the meantime there are more online classes on the Alt Channel. (Blogging friends- check it out!)

I know it will be a lot of hard work but I can't wait to see where this inspiration takes me!