Conference Overview:
Dates: October 21-22, 2010
Location: Portland, OR
Site: Hotel deLuxe
Sessions:
Cocktail Blogging: Where do we go from here?
Explore the evolution and future of cocktail blogs with panelists who have successfully adapted their blogs and writing to leverage social media, support their own special projects, connect with new readership and maintain existing readership.
Panelists: Darcy O’Neil and Camper English
Theories of Mixology: Approaches to developing original drinks
Find out how premier bartenders and mixologists approach developing new drinks, evaluating old and new ingredients and adjusting classic recipes. They will also explore the “families” of drinks and how commonalties and differences can be approached when developing new cocktails.
Panelists: Daniel Shoemaker, Erick Castro, and Craig Hermann
Increasing Readership and Reader Engagement
This session will focus on how cocktail writers can better use social media to reach out to new readers and how to improve your content’s interactivity to better retain old ones. The panelists will also discuss how to engage readers offline and promote your content through offline outlets and events.
Panelists: Matt Robold, Lindsey Johnson
Cocktail Blogging: Ethics, the law, and you
Disclosure laws, brand relationships and interacting with public relations firms can create a minefield of ethical challenges and legal risks for cocktail writers and bloggers. Recent changes to sample disclosure laws, identifying and managing potential ethical conflicts and minimizing risk will be discussed in this session.
Panelists: Paul Clarke, TBD
Making Your Own Ingredients
From crème de noyaux to bitters, join us in this session to discover the most up-to-date and effective techniques to make your own cocktail syrups and liqueurs and to test and develop your own ingredients to promote flavor extraction and shelf stability.
Panelists: Jeffrey Morgenthaler and Blair Reynolds
Improving Site Design and Usability
This session will focus on best practices in both WordPress and non-WordPress installations to improve a blog’s layout, design and usability to increase clickthrough rate, time spent on your site and the ability of user to interact with your site and find the content relevant to them.
Panelists: Jessica Neumann Beck and Ron Dollete
Events:
CSOWG Welcome Reception
The CSOWG will host a welcome reception at L'Heure Bleue on the evening of October 20th to welcome the Cocktail and Spirits Online Writers Group members and the panelists to Drink.Write.
Sponsor: Mandarine Napoleone'
Thursday Drink Night: Live from Portland!
The CSOWG, in conjunction with the Oregon Bartender's Guild and Live the Lush Life, will host a live Thursday Drink Night on Thursday, October 21st at the Hotel deLuxe.
