Bay Area media: Don't miss digital news conference deadline

Time's ticking away and I want to be sure you consider attending ONA09, Oct. 1-3 at the Hilton San Francisco.  The early bird deadline to register ends Aug. 28.  It's been about three years since the organization committed to SF and I pushed hard to get it in my former home town. So I want SF to give them a good showing.

But more importantly if you're a Bay Area netizen, you would find ONA09 exciting and useful, for networking, learning and business. Last year every journalism organization's conference was hurting -- but ours was sold out as it has been year-over-year.  That's because ONA is at the intersection of technology and journalism.  Our members represent the crossover between the two worlds.

There are vendor showcases, job fairs, networking parties, dinners and cocktails, and the awards banquet (a favorite of mine, but hey, I'm the chair of the awards committee, so I'm biased).

Liz Lufkin's our conference co-chair this year.  You may remember her as editor of the Pink Section but she's now home page editor of Yahoo! She's joined by Katharine Fong, the SJ Merc's interactive managing editor. They've put together an amazing list of guests, from Ev Williams of Twitter to Krishna Bharat, Google News creator, to Leo LaPorte of TechTV and now his own must-follow podcasting network, TWiT.

You're not going to find a more interesting and accessible conference to hob-nob with the top digital executives, reporters, producers and editors from around the country and the world. And they're all going to be in your home town.

I'd appreciate it if you gave the conference serious consideration, and even more if you spread the word among our Bay Area journalism and digital media colleagues by forwarding on a link to this post.

And hey even if you're not going to go, drop me a line. I'll be there and I'd love to see you at the hotel for drinks and to catch up. Some day (who knows?) the Moors may move back to the Bay Area. There's just too much digital innovation going on in my favorite city to stay away forever.

Thanks and here's to seeing you soon.