"Hobnobbing" At The 2012 President's Conference part 1

Ambivalent I was for sure about attending this year's President's Conference. I'd been invited in the past and never ended up going for various reasons.  To be honest, anything connected to Shimon Peres, President of Israel, is a turn-off as far as I'm concerned.  But since it amazingly fit into my busy schedule, ok mid-way through day #2 was the earliest I could make it, I figured that G-d wanted me there.

Registration was a breeze.  They accepted my official Israeli Senior Citizen ותיק Vatik Card as identification and gave me a name tag on a string to put around my neck.  I picked up a schedule/program and discovered that there was only one session going on.  It ended up that you needed a ticket to get in, and they were all gone.

When I complained to one of the staff, she told me to "blog, tweet, fb about the poor organization," since hundreds (could there have been so many?) of people were stuck like me with nothing to do. 

"Hobnob or network," I was told.  "You must know somebody here."
"Not me.  I'm the invisible person." I replied.  "Maybe I should just go home."

But then I spotted David Ha'ivri, of the Shomron Liaison Office.  Soon I met Eli Hertz of Myths and Facts and saw Stephen Leavitt, General Manager - Internet at JewishPress.com.   I was starting to enjoy myself.

Soon I ran into an old friend and newer blogger, Sharon of Real Jerusalem Streets who took me off to the Press Room.  Yes, we bloggers are fully accepted as journalists at the President's Conference. 

She also gave me her ticket to the plenum to observe the Plenary Session: What's New in New Media.  I got to hear most of the end of it.

Paula, A Soldier's Mother, was at the conference, too.  The organizers even have a few special sessions for bloggers only.  They obviously realize that we give them lots of free publicity.

At the session I attended we heard Alana Newhouse, editor-in-chief of Tablet.  She also took lots of questions from the floor.  There were more bloggers there, Rafi-Life in Israel, my husband-My Right Word, David of Jewlicious and many, many others.

Especially since most of us rarely get to see each other, this was definitely an afternoon well-spent.