Guillermo Paz
Pam,
First of all, the e-mail was sent respectfully and to you as listed in the bloggers attending to the conference. As I said in the post, I hadn´t the chance to meet more than a couple of bloggers and I´m intended to revert that for next year.
You can call it spam if you like, I don´t see it like that, as it was not at all the goal for it, rather than generate some debate.
And, secondly, it was sent to your public e-mail address; I did not have to hack into anything to do it.
Thirdly, I started with a proper On topic subject, then introducing myself and why I was sending you the e-mail, and just then it was the link inviting you to come join the debate and share your thoughts. Therefore you had not only one, but four opportunities to disregard my e-mail, but instead you: Opened it, read it, visited it and commented it. Something I would not normally do that with spammers.
Fourthly, calling me out in my own blog instead of replying "please don´t send me any more e-mails" was not a proper response. So as you called me spammer, I could very well put you in the troll category, albeit one that writes with proper grammar and G rated language.
Anyways, if my e-mail was of disturbance, I´m sorry, it won´t happen again as I won´t contact you any further.
Now, onto your On topic comments:
The first point about not feeling the need to make anyone feel welcome unless you are organizing the event tells me that I was quite correct in my assumption. In Argentina we would go out of our way to make you feel welcome, wether we are organizers or not. Politeness, kindness and being good hosts are not "part of the job" for us. It´s part of who we are, our upbringing. So I guess we are different in that regard, and as I said; it was not a complain, it was an observation that surprised me, the same as it would surprise me when visiting England how the cars go a different way.
Perhaps, then, I felt a more welcoming vibe from publishers because it was part of their job, IDK, but they weren´t the organizers either.
I posted this article as my opinion, and if you read it thoroughly, I even suggest three different instances of networking so it can attract all three interests (those who want to meet bloggers, authors or publishers, and why not, those who want a bit of everything). I even added suggestions for specific bloggers quality time.
I just think that it´s not fair to blame BEA Bloggers for not networking that much among bloggers. There were 20 or so tables to network freely both at breakfast and lunch. And those were the least populated tables. That was a decision of the bloggers.
Let´s criticize the speakers and sessions for the lack of bloginess there. Ok, I´m in. That´s why I suggested more parallel sessions that include and tackle those subjects and particular needs.
That an event may be focused on blogs does not, by any means suggest it should be only bloggers talking about blogs; it´s that blogging about books should be the center of it. So publishers, authors, bloggers, journalists, and whoever is in the industry could get a better sense of that part of the industry: blogging. Not an isolation of it.
One thing we do agree is that these are opinions. Mine are this, yours are completely different. That´s what opinions are for. I don´t want to feed you my POV, you don´t feed me yours. We discuss. Healthy talk.
Neither a spammer nor a troll, although we can very easily call each other that if we want to I guess.
Thanks for stopping by and making the debate grow though.
Graciela,
Luckily you can come join... that would also mean one more to help the project grow.
Graciela L.Argüello
I agree with number first in your list of things you want to see in Bea 2013. But I would rather say "Us there". And perhaps it is possible, let's wait and see. The event seems interesting enough to make and effort and attend it. My best wishes Graciela.
