Wow, its Wednesday already! I got back from Berlin late on Sunday night and since then it feels like I haven’t stopped for a minute. I spent the last two mornings (I have the mornings to do my work) writing a travel feature and organising and editing the photos. It seemed to take a lot longer than I thought but I am pleased with the result, lets hope the publication is too. But during that time my brain was also buzzing from the things I learnt and heard at The Hive.

I suppose it can be summed up as the good, the bad and the ugly – although the conference fell into the first category.

The good aspects were hearing from inspiring people from the blogging world about how they have made their blog what it is today, no matter how big or small their readership is. It was also wonderful to speak to readers of my blog who took the time to come up to me and say lovely things and also to meet people who are new to blogging and wanted to talk with me about my blogging experience. I also heard from more technical speakers who saved me hours of reading dry books and gave me the information I needed. There was a great atmosphere and a lot of open trading of information and experiences. Sadly as often happens when the conference is held in Berlin, there was a section of the audience who thought it was appropriate to chat fairly loudly during the presentations – an element that was noticeably missing last year in Copenhagen.

The bad is not so bad but I now have a massive to do list of how to build Dejlige Days in the future but I need to pace myself and not go crazy all at once. I learned a lot more about good practice behind the scenes of blogging – the boring, technical stuff I ignore that I really should be doing. Its nothing in your face but ways to make the site function better for me and for you.

I also learned that I need not be so shy about my work here but that also takes courage and time to build up. I am juggling this and a growing writing portfolio for others and I thought – hey why not start another blog? Mad! But I have some other areas I want to write about that may feel a little incongruous here but are still things my readers may be interested in so I will be launching a new smaller micro blog later this month. It won’t be updated every day, but a few times a month and will concentrate on more general travel related items not specific to Copenhagen. On the subject of juggling I have decided to drop the newsletter for a while but it may well return in the future. The posts were exclusive to the newsletter readers each month but they may well pop up in an edited form here in the future.

Finally the ugly. I am lucky enough to have a readership that doesn’t include trolls and haters (and hopefully stays that way) and from the consensus around the audience at the conference this is something that happens a lot less in Europe than the States. We heard from an American blogger who is faced with internet trolling and online bullying on a daily basis and it was shocking to hear what she goes through just because there is a group of women who follow her around the internet and start hurtful discussions wherever they can. It shocked me that there are people who devote so much time and energy to be so unpleasant. They set up anonymous Twitter and Instagram accounts to attack her and belong to on-line forums created to simply attack bloggers and hide behind the anonymity of the computer. I spoke briefly with her after her presentation and it baffled me what it is about her that can breed such hatred. I am often offended by things I read, I don’t like everything I see online and I think negatively about some people and situations but I realise there is an off button in life and chose to move along and devote energy elsewhere.

The biggest take away from The Hive is still that there is a future for blogging, a future for the positive contribution that genuine bloggers give to the online world and that the online world can connect people in a real and wonderful way.