EightBlack.

Well, an interesting start to this trip, the 9th I’ve made to the US across the Pacific this year. I knew it wasn’t going well when the Customs & Immigrations officer starting giving me the 3rd degree not long after I landed.

You know when you get off a plane in the US - the thing you dread most is the long trek to Immigration and then the wait. It’s a bit of a chook raffle - because you’re not sure if 3 planes from China just landed at the same time or 30. I’ve been in queues for hours. The sort of queues that make you start to lose the will to live.

Thankfully, yesterday - the United flight was the only flight to unload. I thought it would be a cinch. Perfect. The queue was minimal. You then pick the Immigration guy who looks least likely to shoot you.

Anyway, then the ball breaking started.

“Why do you come to the US so often?”

“Where are you staying?”

“Show me your return ticket”

“What sort of business are you in?”

Look, I’d like to think I’ve got this travel thing down ok by now. I rarely carry itineraries (after all, I obviously made the flight didn’t I?), I don’t print off hotel confirmations and I only ever buy etickets. So, all my travel history is a click away. I know where to find it if I need it. I trust the internet.

But that didn’t go over to well with Office Kim, from the US Government.

I learned long ago to stop using the “Do you know who I am?” routine. It rarely works. Actually, it never has. But I felt a lot better when I said it.

“Follow me…..”

So, to cut a long story short - I had a very animated conversation with much arm waving in a small room, with another Customs Agent. I did manage to actually leave the customs hall, but not after much chiding by the US government. Get a green card and save yourself the trouble next time, was essentially the crux of their message. They were perplexed as to how I had managed to convince a US citizen (ie my wife) to marry me and why hadn’t I gotten off my lazy arse to apply for residency.

Anyway.

On my connecting flight to Vegas, I drank 2 bloody mary’s (minus the tomato juice) to calm my nerves.

Right then, back to what I started to post about. Day one at Blogworld Expo.

I’m listening to Andy Wibbels and Jen McClure, whose session is titled “Business Blogging 101″. The organisers at Blogworld are allowing me to tape the session, so if I can work out how to edit the footage today and post it to YouTube, I will.

There’s some good content in the session - especially if you’re new to blogging. Like Technorati is tracking 110 million blogs daily, that 120,000 new blogs arrive on the scene each and every day (obviously a lot of people with unresolved issues with their parents out there), one third of all blogs are in English, one third in Japanese and the rest in other languages.

Just wait until the sleeping giant - China wakes up to this. The Chinese Government and their censors will no doubt have different views to the blogosphere and I bet there are some very concerned government officials watching the medium.

Jen and Andy worked well together in this session, the session was informal and already, there is a chasm in the audience between those who really know this space and those who are just getting started, which is really the whole point.

Marc Harty is sitting across the room and I’ve already run into Des Walsh, so the day is off to a good start. Both are speaking at the gig.

I heard on the grapevine that close to 2,000 people are attending over the next 3 days. Well done to the organisers. No mean feat.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 5:20 am and is filed under Blogging For Business, Corporate, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.