She’s Connected Conference 2012

I just attended my first ever blogger’s conference this past weekend, thanks to my sponsor,masalamommas.  The 3rd Annual She’s Connected Conference was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

I went in with expectations that I’d get to meet other bloggers, meet some brands and hear about other people’s experiences blogging. What I got, however, was a whole lot more. I loved the candour of many of the speakers. These women were established, knowledgeable and confident enough to share their trade secrets with the attendees.

We were privileged to hear some very talented and well-established women speak; such as Kate White, the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine (she even signed my copy of her book I Shouldn’t be Telling You This). Rashida Jeeva, General Manager of the Huffington Post, Michelle McIlmoyle, senior Marketing Manager of McDonald’s Canada and her colleague Cathy Loblaw of the Ronald McDonald House Charity.

I enjoyed listening to Ford Canada’s keynote speech about safety in vehicles and how various distractions impact our safety while driving and what their product line has done to mitigate that danger, particularly with their Sync technology.  Overall, Ford, the title sponsor of the conference went above and beyond in engaging the attendees with several demonstrations. I got to test a remote control Ford Fusion in a closed course, I got to mountain bike (yes, you read that right). You can view the video here, we got to check out the newest members of their fleet, including the 2013 Ford C-MAX and meet their friendly team members.

One of my favourite items was a locker that held chargers for iPhones and Blackberries. You could charge your device, close the door, lock it with a combination and walk away while your phone charged. This, in my opinion, was ingenious in a setting where we were Tweeting, Facebook-ing, checking email, texting and essentially using our phones excessively.

Telus also had free chargers available to plug our phones in while relaxing on leather couches and provided stuffed animals for my kids.

The lounges were beautifully set up. Hats off to McDonald’s for setting up a beautiful lounge with massages, manicures, a live jazz band on day one, and leather couches. The steady unlimited supply of coffees, lattes, espressos and smoothies was refreshing and addictive. I truly felt pampered dropping in. Even the entrance to the lounge was welcoming with white taffeta adorning the doorway. I learnt a lot about changes McDonald’s is implementing to their menu selections as well as the wonderful work of the Ronald McDonald House charity.

While I do not drink, nor deal with alcohol-related products, I did stop by the Molson lounge for a quick photo shoot. I was impressed by their setup and friendliness. After the conference, I followed up with their photo team by email to request permission to use their photograph minus the logo. I promptly received a very accommodating response stating that not only was it alright to use or alter the images as I see fit but that they would send me an original image without the logo for my own use with an even higher resolution. If you’re on Twitter, please be sure to follow photographers @drostphoto or @shhft.

In addition to the educational and entertaining speeches, I had a wonderful time meeting the many brands that were present. I got a beautiful set of re-usable mink eyelashes done by ilashme that I can reuse 25 times, a great reusable stylish lunch bag by CAA, an impressive swag bag by Burnbrae farms, copious amounts of free iogo yogurt which was delicious and pounds upon pounds of great swag from other brands including Telus, World Vision, Almond Fresh, Chicken Farmers of Canada, Canadian Beef, Maple Leaf Farms, Dove Canada and Food Banks Canada to name a few. I also loved previewing great new toys and board games at the Hasbro booth.

I was privileged to spend time with the talented and beautiful fellow Staff writers at masalamommas.com. While I felt I already knew them, many of us had never actually met in person.

It was wonderful meeting so many of my favourite bloggers, as well as getting to know others who are writing about a plethora of topics that interest them.

This conference was revolutionary for me, as it really opened my eyes to the world of blogging and its potential. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to all the volunteers, brand ambassadors, and organizers of the 2012 She’s Connected conference. To anyone interested in learning more, or furthering their blogging careers, I’d highly recommend you check out next year’s conference for yourself.