Last week in Chicago I had the distinct pleasure of meeting some A-List bloggers in person at the AMA Blogging Workshop, including two people I consider friends and colleagues: Toby Bloomberg and Dana VanDen Heuvel. (Thanks Toby for the great “Caution A-list Blogger: You May Be Blogged” T-shirt. It’s been working great at striking paranoia in the hearts of some of my business associates!)

I’ve got a lot to blog about from the AMA blogging workshop and the “marketing wonk” that followed afterwards, but it’s going to have to wait until after Search Engine Strategies. I’ve just been running ragged with the non-stop travel for the past couple weeks. Can’t wait to get back to New Zealand… 1 more week and I’ll be back with the family and back to summer!

Lately I feel like I’m on a mission to evangelize blogs for business and the implications for brand building, credibility, customer communication, and search engine marketing (to name a few). For instance…

• I’ve submitted a speaking proposal to the DMA Annual Conference for a panel on blogs for marketing, moderated by me and with Toby, Dana, and Debbie Weil as the panelists.
• Next week I speak at Search Engine Strategies on the Webfeeds, Blogs, and Search panel.
• Tomorrow I’ll be interviewed by a news anchorman from the local ABC affiliate about blogging, to be aired next month.
• I’m organizing a “Thought Leaders Summit” teleconference for MarketingProfs.com on business blogging to take place next month and I’ve recruited an amazing panel of thought leaders for it: Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Shel Israel, Steve Rubel, BL Ochman, Debbie, Toby, and Dana.

And I of course evangelize to my clients about blogging. REI got a dose of it today, for instance.

Where is this all going to lead? Not sure yet, but it just feels right to share my excitement about blogging with everyone. The Web is alive, ALIVE! I tell you!