When I was visualizing the crowd that might attend the first annual BlogIndiana Conference this weekend in downtown Indianapolis, I had to admit, the picture wasn’t pretty. I had images of GenCon rejects without the costumes wandering around with laptops and Star Wars backpacks.

I have to admit, the conference was a pleasant surprise and well done for a first-time conference. Some local speakers included Renee Wilmeth of “Feed Me/Drink Me” fame, Bil (one “l”) Browning from the Bilerco Project, Smaller Indiana’s Erik Deckers,  Bob “I look like a high school history teacher” Burchfield from AroundIndiana.com, the Pasta Queen Jennette Fulda. and of course me talking about our Geist Reservoir Community blog portal. (I just love cross-posting!)

Of course, we had out-of-towners from Hanapin Marketing and iSocket.com come up as well as a constituency from Cincy’s PhoTrade.

The term “blogging” is a pretty broad category, and the conference tended to lean towards the casual, shut-in, “wish I could be published” blogger. A lot of hype around Twitter, which I personally think is a waste of time. As if we don’t all suffer from attention deficit disorder enough, let’s keep a bunch of “followers” updated on our every move throughout the day. There is a business model there somewhere, but I just don’t have the time.

Corporate blogging wannabes trying to figure out their online strategy were probably a bit confused as well. I sat through a session by Sarah Robbins with MediaSauce who has a purple swipe of hair for a calling card. The topic was online branding, but the content was geared more towards those trying to reach the college facebook or secondlife “I look so much better as an avatar” crowd. I don’t think the problem was the presenter, Sarah did a great job and kept it interesting. The problem is blogging itself.

I realized after the 1:00 panel discussion I sat in on today that blogging is just a technology that is used and adapted by many people in many different ways. We might as well had a hammer convention and had Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Sears sponsor it.

“I use my hammer to knock down walls.”

“I paint winter scenes on hammer handles and sell them at craft fairs.”

“I’m going to the 2012 Olympics to participate in the hammer throw competition.”

“I use hammers to correct my kids.”

Everybody has a different reason for blogging, everyone has a different community to build, and everyone wants everyone else to read their blog. Reminds me a lot of the self-publishing conferences I’ve been frequenting the last three years.

At least no one mentioned Oprah’s book club at this conference.