It’s been almost a full week since the Blissdom Canada conference. As you may know, I was ecstatic about attending – for a second year – Canada’s only social media conference for women.

I had set a few goals for myself, one of them fully realized through the creation of this blog. Yes, indeed! I am finally self-hosted.

But I learned a couple of things about the other goals I set for that conference…

Working with brands and PR

@aliworthington, @herbadmother and @barbarajones kicking things off

Excited as I was to learn about work with brands, I realized that it might not be right for me. It comes down to properly understanding the value of my time, something bloggers who want to work with brands need to really think about before cultivating those relationships.

This theme about valuing our time is a theme that ran across several sessions during the conference.

During the opening keynote, @herbadmother said it’s important to interrogate our knowledge of ourselves. Interrogate is a strong word and I never thought about self-knowledge in that way before.

What I value, what I don’t. What I believe in.

I need to really understand myself, and my own motives before thinking about working with brands. That’s going to take some reflection.

I’m not totally shutting it off as a possibility, but I’m parking it for now. In the meantime, I’ll continue to work at becoming a better storyteller and learning more about me. (more…)