The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

I'm sitting in Detroit, Michigan at the Airport watching people run to catch their planes, wrestle with their luggage, and herding children. It's good people watching today! :-) I'm getting ready to head across the pond for Microsoft TechEd EMEA in Berlin! TechSmith will have a booth at the show, so if you're attending the tradeshow, please stop by! I'd love to meet-up!

Troy Stein, the Camtasia for Mac Product Manager, will also be attending the show. So, if you have any feedback for him, this would be a great time to meet and share thoughts with him.

I'll be tweeting and posting lots of pictures from our adventures.

Drop me an email, text or call me (+1.517.410.0030) if you are in Berlin or attending the show. We'd love to see you!

Time for me to pack up and catch my flight! Thankfully I'm not running late and checked my luggage so no need to run to my gate or struggle with my luggage! :-)

Oh - and if you have any travel advice for Berlin, I'd love to hear it! What should we see? Where should we eat? We will be going to the Festival of Freedom to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Last week, the TechSmith crew was at the Blogworld Expo. We had a great time and even had a fun new booth. The theme of our booth was all about Snagit, Camtasia and Jing making tasty screencasts and yummy screencaptures. In our booth, we had our new Om Nom Nom Monster. See? He's eating some screencasts and screencaptures with a spork! :-)

And, keeping with the theme of tasty video and screencaptures, we thought it would be fun to get some titanium TechSmith sporks! If you find me on the road, ask me for your own titanium TechSmith spork.

Brooks Andrus and I were armed with a Flip Mino HD videocam and caught up with some TechSmith friends. We shot a quick video with Sean Carruthers and Andy Walker (aka the Lab Rats) from butterscotch.com. Click the video to find out the idea Sean came up with for a new blog! It's a quick one - it runs less than a minute long.

And, we also ran into Ryan Hupfer (aka Hup) from Hubpages. Not only did Hup and I have the same shoes, but we also share the love of sporks. Check out the quick vid Brooks and I got with Hup at the tradeshow - it runs just over a minute long.

And, speaking of TechSmith sporks... Healthcare IT consultant and Camtasia Studio user, Luke Schnoebelen, is chronicling everything he eats with his TechSmith spork on his new blog, "Things I've Eaten With My TechSmith Titanium Spork". I love the creativity! Can't wait to see the adventures Luke's spork goes on around the world!

We've been taking pics of our Om Nom Nom monster and sporks on the road - you can see our adventures here. Again - find me on the road and I'll give you a titanium TechSmith spork. Hopefully it will inspire you to make your own yummy screencasts and screencaptures with Snagit, Camtasia and Jing!

I love loading up the car and heading out for a roadtrip! It's a good time to turn of the technology (expect for GPS!), clear my mind, and think creatively. And, once I reach my destination, I love meeting with our users, attending events, and learning about a new city and culture.

I have a few extra tickets for two upcoming events that you can enter a drawing to win!

The first conference I have a ticket to share with one lucky reader is the StackOverflow DevDays in Toronto on October 23. You can find out details on the event here. I'm attending this event with TechSmith's lead developer of Snagit for the Mac, Paul Middlin. If you'd like to meet up in Toronto, please let me know! Email, text or call me (+1.517.410.0030)

In November, we're heading to the Degrag 2009 conference in Denver, Colorado. I have one conference pass to give away.

To enter the drawing to win one of the free conference passes, please leave a comment on this blog post by 5:00pm EST, Friday, October 16. Please include:

1. A topic or idea you would like to me cover in a blog post on The Visual Lounge blog
2. Which conference you would like to attend - StackOverflow DevDays, Toronto or the Defrag Conference

The Heart of America, The Big Peach, and Sin City... I'm hitting the road and am visiting these cities in October! I hope to see some of you on the road too!

This week, I'm in Kansas City for the Cerner Health Conference. If you're in the area or attending the event, drop me a line, call or text (+1.517.410.0030) me. I'd love to meet up! First round of a beverage of your choice is one me!

After Kansas City, Tiffany Wood, the Snagit Product Manager, and I are headed to Atlanta for PowerPoint Live, October 11 - 14.

And then I'm heading to Las Vegas for the Blog World Expo, October 15 - 17.

Same offer applies for each city - drop me a line if you're in the area. I'd love to meet up and get your feedback, hear about your screencasting, give some training tips or talk shop.

I'm lucky enough to go to several shows a year, but TechSmith goes to many more than I attend. You can see our entire tradeshow calendar here. Hope to see you on the road!

I've got my mini bottles of shampoo packed and ready to go! I'm headed to the BlogHer where I will join over one thousand other bloggers. I'm looking forward to learning from them, being inspired and joining the conversation.

If you're in town attending the conference or are in Chicago, I'd love to meet-up for a meal or a beverage of your choice. :-) Just drop me an email, call or text me (517.410.0030) or contact me on Twitter @betsyweber

I need your feedback to share with the teams at TechSmith so we can make you better products. And, if you're really feeling crazy, I'd love to shoot a quick video or screencast with you. I'll be armed with my camera and video camera.

Any restaurants I should try out in Chicago or any recommendations for some new music? I've got a 4 hour drive ahead of me and I'll need something new and fun to listen to on the road!

It's that time of year... Time to dust of my comfy shoes so I can hit the tradeshows running!

At TechSmith, we're busy planning our travel schedules for the fall and 2010. Here's our current calendar of events. We're always looking to participate in events around the world.

That's where I need your help. I'd love to know what tradeshows or events you'd like to see TechSmith attend? Where would you like us come visit?

Dave McCollom, our Education Evangelist, also wants to know what Education events you want us to attend - leave him a comment on his blog here.

And, the best part of travel and tradeshows? I'll give you a hint... It's not going to an exotic location or spending time at the airport. :-) The best part is meeting you, hearing your questions, getting your feedback and seeing how you're using our software. Let us know where we should go and hopefully we'll see you this fall or in 2010!

By the way, that is Kathy Jacobs on the right in the pic above. She's a Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing user. We met at a tradeshow many years ago and she's become a lifelong friend. :-)

Brooks Andrus and I are having a great time at 360|Flex today! We had a chance to catch up with Renaun Erickson, a RIA developer at Adobe and who is also the driving force behind Structured Log Testing, an open source project for RIA Flash platform developers.

Renaun shared with us the benefits of visual communication for him and how he needed a little more than Jing for his screencasting (he hit the 5 minute limit). He shared how he uses Camtasia Studio.

And, in keeping with the bacon theme, we got Renaun to try one of the maple bacon lollipops we brought to the conference! He may be the biggest bacon fan I have ever met! The video is just under 4 minutes long...

We recorded the video with a Flip HD Mino camera and Brooks edited and produced the video using Adobe Premiere and After Effects

The pic above is by Eric Stoike - See more of his great pics from 360|Flex here

Part of my job is to connect with people. And, as you may know, I might be what some people call a little quirky. :-) So, I thought we should have something fun in the booth. Somehow I stumbled up Maple Bacon Lollipops - I had to try them! I mean, what could be better than sugar plus organic bacon on a stick?! I figured, it'd be fun for Brooks Andrus, our Senior Flash Developer, and I to take them down to Indianapolis for 360|Flex this week. The lollipops would be a great hook to get people to talk to us and a way to have fun at our demo table. So far, so good!

Interested in the response to the lollipops? Brooks and I interviewed a few Flex developers not only about the candy but also how they use Snagit, Camtasia Studio, and Jing. Check out the first interview with Nick Kwiatkowski. It's a quick one that runs 2:00 minutes.

We made the video with a Flip Mino HD camera and used Adobe Premiere to edit plus a pic from iStockphoto.

Also, be sure to check out Brooks' first video about the bacon lollipops here.

Maple + Sugar + Bacon + Stick = Good?