About a week ago Josh Hallett, founder and organizer of the successful, informative and enjoyable BlogOrlando 2006 conference and a consultant on corporate and social blogging (as well as most things “geeky”), posted an entry on his blog regarding people wearing Bluetooth headsets in stupid locations. Both the post and the comments made me chuckle because I realized that, in the short span of time that I have had my own Bluetooth headset, I have probably been guilty of wearing mine in some stupid locations. I plead “new use” syndrome (that peculiar action of using something new quite a bit at the onset of ownership or availability, then finally finding a balance as the “something” becomes more familiar) and the fact that my headset is SO comfortable I sometimes forget I even have it on. But I have been making progress (”Hi, my name is The Masked Blogger and I wear my Bluetooth headset in stupid places.” “Hi Masked Blogger.“), now that I am a month into using my Bluetooth, in removing mine after each use when it would not be appropriate to wear that handy little object.

I particularly enjoyed the “It’s a phone, not an earring…take the damn thing off!” line.

Along the same lines, TechEBlog recently published an article entitled “5 Gadgets You Don’t Want to be Seen Wearing” along with pictures. Shown below is the gadget I found the most amusing, the “Techno Privacy Scarf”.

“Developed by Joe Malia, this ‘Techno Privacy Scarf’ supposedly protects your privacy when using portable devices in public areas - or at home.”

This article reminded me of some of the ridiculous creations I used to see in Mad Magazine when I was a kid when I would read the “Inventions We’d Like To See” feature, where artists would draw inventions like the “Cigarette Smoke Recycler” (which resembled the human wastewater recyclers in “Dune“) and the “Electric Shaver Necklace“.

I love new tech toys and you still might see me occasionally wearing my Bluetooth in stupid places…but I’ll definitely skip the “Techno Privacy Scarf“.

Good news! I did a hard reboot and “bingo!” my AC power (I plead exhaustion for referring to it as DC in the previous post) started working again. I was starting to go into withdrawal, so I’m very thankful that I’m powered and connected again. Whew!

The “Legal” session was interesting and I would venture to say that more questions were raised than were answered.

Following that was a session lead by the conference host, Josh Hallett, that he titled, “Off The Record” and here’s  how  he described it in the program details:

This session will be an experiment. We’ll turn off our laptops and other recording devices and talk off the record about things we can’t blog about. For example have you ever started a post and then said, “I can’t post this”. Sometimes it’s emotional, other times it’s job security. You know you’ve been dying to get it off your chest. Now is your chance. This might be the best session, or the worst…we’ll see.

Now I could really identify with this! On both a professional and personal level there have been countless times that I either thought about a post subject or even started writing a post and decided that I just could not publish that particular entry. Either there would be a confidence broken, would be something related to my day job that would be detrimental to my continuing to be employed or it would be something that would be too personal or hurtful to family or friends. My solution has been to create a separate document to either write those entries to, or even just jot down a few key words or thoughts into, that document and one day I will either be able to publish it or use it in some other aspect of my writing, like short fiction or a magazine article.

Right now I’m in the “Tools” session and we’ve exhausted all the obvious jokes about that unfortunate title, but I’m learning and refreshing my knowledge about blogging tools, programs, etc.

At some point between Panera and arriving back at the conference hall the transformer on my DC connect cord seems to have bitten the dust. I have checked every connection and all of that seems to be fine, but the transformer is stone cold and my battery indicator shows I only have a little less than 2 hours of battery power remaining, so this may be my last post from the conference and indeed for a while from my laptop until I can buy a replacement power cord.

So, as I mentioned earlier, the “Politics” session was informative, especially with the upcoming elections here locally and in Florida. I don’t usually have a lot of political commentary on here so, while I was interested in the subject over the alternate offering of “Corporate Blogging”, it was not as interesting to me as the “Hyperlocal” session that followed.

As the name implies, “Hyperlocal” dealt with blogs that contain content that is exclusively of local interest. O’Blog is one of the few locally exclusive blogs in Orlando that I am aware of, and even it has content that is mostly of a political nature. In fact it’s author, Bob O’Malley, was the leader of the “Politics” session this morning. There used to be an excellent local blog by some guy who called himself Man About Town that was exclusively about local Orlando issues, entertainment, news, politics, etc. but he seems to have left the building back at the end of July. I miss his unique take on local Orlando subjects. Metroblogging Orlando, a collaborative effort by a group of local bloggers (including yours truly) is a great blog source for local Orlando issues.

The “Hyperlocal” session leaders were 2 bloggers, one from Tampa and one from Jacksonville, and they offered up some excellent advice and interesting anecdotes of their experiences, and then the attendees enjoyed a free-wheeling forum among ourselves regarding experiences and advice, as well as thought-provoking questions about both content, behavior and ethics.

I strolled over to Panera for lunch and enjoyed a small portion of the beauty of Winter Park. I wanted to sit in the park and enjoy a little more, but I also wanted to get back to the hall and get a good seat near an electrical outlet (not that it did me any good; see above).

Right now I’m sitting in the “Legal Issues” session and there is a great discussion going on about liability, privacy and libel issues that bloggers have and may face.

If I don’t have enough power to get back here, thanks for reading my experiences at the BlogOrlando Unconference.

The “Politics” session was informative but I really enjoyed the “Hyperlocal” session since in another guise I used to do a blog about Orlando happenings for a huge, multi-national media conglomerate and currently contribute (with a great group) to Metroblogging Orlando.
I’ll get some more pictures up here and at the BlogOrlando Flickr page later, right now I’m about to tear into a Sierra Turkey on Foccaccia at Panera, my favorite place for food and free Wi-Fi (and apparently that of other bloggers as well, since a good portion of the conference attendees are here for lunch with me).

I arrived at Rollins about 8:40. Checked my cell phone and had a voice mail from ZenGrrl saying she thinks she’s coming down with the flu and wouldn’t make it today. It’s been a few months since we’ve been able to get together as she has been out of town and recently returned for a visit, so I was disappointed but hope she feels better soon, especially since her birthday is tomorrow. Swing by her site and wish her a “Happy Birthday”.
After calling conference host Josh and navigating over to the campus, I stepped through the doors of the hall, picked up my name tag and complimentary BlogOrlando T-shirt, then joined (at that point) some 40 other attendees.
Josh opened the conference at 9:10 and by that time the crowd had grown to 55 or so and by the time Josh finished his humorous introduction most of the 80 or so attendees were seated and ready for the individual sessions.I’m off to the “Politics” and “Hyperlocal” sessions.

I’m taking a well-deserved (in my opinion) day off from the big government agency to attend BlogOrlando, the UnConference. Free Wi-Fi is promised, so I hope to post a few entries through the course of the all day meeting and pictures here and at the BlogOrlando Flickr page.