Five things I learned at the IFBC conference in Seattle

I know I’ve been talking a lot about the technical aspects of blogging lately. I’m going to return to Mexican food soon, I promise, but I did just want to share a few more thoughts from the International Food Blogger Conference I attended a few weeks ago.

The conference really made me think. Not just about recipes and search engine optimization and stuff like that — although that was part of it — but also about how different all of us food bloggers are, and how it’s totally, mind-blowingly crazy that we’re a huge demographic that doesn’t quite belong to any one industry. We’re just kinda making up the rules as we go along.

Here are five things that stuck with me from the conference:

1. Food bloggers may be here to stay but not all of us share the same purpose or standards. I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I was really struck by the fact that no one addressed the ethics of our swag bag and how the sponsors were plying us with free food. Some people Tweeted that they’d write-up a product in a heartbeat, if that meant they’d get it for free. I was personally a little overwhelmed by all the tastings and the heavy marketing push. It made me not want to write anything — even tasting the raw geoduck, which was quite good — because I felt like a shill. It would’ve been nice if the sponsors would’ve addressed this before the conference started. Or maybe next time I pick a blogging conference that doesn’t have quite so many vendors.

2. Many food bloggers hate SEO. This kind of relates to the point above. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is the way Google and other search engines find our posts. For instance, a recipe for chipotle corn chowder would have a higher page ranking if the author put “chipotle corn chowder” in the post title and throughout the text.

The IFBC live conference Twitter stream kind of exploded during the SEO portion. “SEO?!” people fumed. “What about good writing? What do the bots think of that?”

My opinion: of course good writing matters. Of course it’s still the most important reason why anyone reads our blogs. But are we really romanticizing blogging that much to say that we don’t want anyone to find us? Are we all saying we’d rather blog in a cave than give up our art? Blogging is a discipline. We will not be killing our muse or harming our readers if we learn how SEO works, and then make an informed decision about whether or not we want to use it.

3. Recipes aren’t copyrighted. Yep. It’s true. A list of ingredients isn’t covered under copyright law — although with the actual recipe directions, the law is a bit murkier. If you copy someone’s recipe method word-for-word, they may have a case to sue you. But it’s not a hard-and-fast rule. The experts recommend that if you’re blogging about any recipe that isn’t your own, you should always credit the source. I like what Seven Spoons does — she’ll clearly explain her inspiration in the recipe headnote, and talk about what she changed in why.

4. We should think about our photos just as much as our writing. The amazing Penny de los Santos inspired everyone, again, with her session about following our instincts and paying more attention to the beauty in the world. Her talk made me realize that even though I have a nice camera, I don’t devote nearly enough time to making good pictures — probably 1/16th of the time I spend writing. Penny had a good suggestion for me: Why not approach every post like a newspaper story?

A newspaper story about grinding cacao on the metate, for instance, wouldn’t have featured boring old cacao beans splayed across a piece of newspaper.

5. To break out of a writing rut, sometimes all you have to do is close your eyes. Kathleen Flinn, the author of The Sharper The Knife, The Less You Cry, led a neat writing exercise where were all forced to examine a lemon as if for the first time. She made us close our eyes and then touch, smell and taste it, and then scribble down our thoughts without using the word “lemon.” The point here: So often I’m in such a rush to publish something, and I don’t take a step back and think about how to write something in a more creative or unique way. It doesn’t take much time to close my eyes and at least try to tap into a less-hurried part of my brain.

A few other conference wrap-ups I liked:

• Food Wishes: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Influential.
• Use Real Butter: IFBC Recap and Then Some (Check out her fantastic photos.)
• Will Write for Food: Blogging For Love? No Way and On Giving Recipes Away For Free