IZEAFest planning is coming along well. I previously announced that Shoemoney will be keynoting one of the days and Loren Feldman will be running a session as well. In addition we have confirmed some other great speakers. I am pleased to announce that Christopher Schmitt has joined the Extreme Blog Makeover Panel. Chris has authored three books, including the CSS Cookbook.

Chris will be bringing some books as door prizes. He is a very likable guy... I am sure he will sign yours if you ask : )

http://www.csscookbook.com/

Here is a brief summary of the session:

Three designers (including Chris) will sit on a panel together. For the first 30 minutes of the presentation they will ask for blog URLs from the audience and deconstruct them on the spot, making recommendations for improvement. Feedback will be focused on design aesthetic, branding, usability, information architecture, css and seo. The last 30 minutes will be broken into 3 individual presentations by each of the speakers.

Each speaker will be provided with a blog URL in advance. The speaker will create a 10 minute presentation about the blog's strengths and weaknesses. At the end of the presentation the speaker will do a reveal, showing the new design of the blog (either as a comp or fully coded page). The blogger who owns the URL will be able to keep the comp or page design.

I will do a post as we get closer to the event asking for blog entries for the makeover session.

Other speaker news

• Susie Gardner, author of Blogging for Dummies, will be leading a session
• Lena West, a favorite from last year, will be on a panel about Social Networking
• Katia Adams of 1800Flowers will be on the "What Advertisers Want" panel

It is shaping up to be a great event. Make sure you save up and put in for vacation time! You can find a roommate on the boards.

If you are interested in speaking on the Fab4 panel (and getting a nice $250 spiff) please make sure to submit your video.

Technorati Tags: christopher schmitt, izeafest, Katia Adams, lena west, susie gardner

Posted by tedmurphy at 03:33 PM in Conferences & Tradeshows | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)