BLOGHER REDUX AND LESSONS LEARNED

BlogHer06 for me was a place learn, evaluate my blogging goals, get out of my comfort zones, and a way to meet people in my community. While it may have been that for other attendees, it certainly has provoked a lot of bitchin' and moanin' and outright vitriol in the blogosphere. It's also gave birth to great insights, identified needs, and spurned a lot of terrific writing.

(Funny how Christopher Carfi at WebPro News also uses the word vitriol, too. Even though I started this post two days before he posted, we share the same outlook. The planets and stars align indeed.)

First the nastiness. There was the post, I hate mommy bloggers from Lasadh, which Grace announced at the Mommy Blogging is a Radical Act session at BlogHer. (Check out the comments at her follow up post, Talk of the town.) This post was straight out of the I Hate Children Wing of the ChildFree Movement. I don't understand the hate, but I agree that BlogHer was mom-centric. If the founders of BlogHer are as smart as I think they are, BlogHer will evolve, and highlight other female voices in the future.

Then the complaints about the shwag, the corporate sponsorships, and how women bloggers are marketed to as straight women and mothers and not tech savvy geeks. While I agree with this somewhat, many bloggers are NOT techie. We rely heavily on services like TypePad and never touch the HTML code. Heck, I still have to explain to women 10-15 years younger than me - I'm talking Gen X and Gen Y here (I'm a boomer) - what a blog is, why I blog, and how I get paid to do it. But then again, I know a whole lot of women who don't read anything beyond People magazine, let alone their local press or a blog. Sigh...

All the justly deserved negativity the Be Janes warranted. It WAS stupid, boring, and a put down. Still companies like Microsoft will get it next time...I hope. This goes back to the marketing thing. Yet free stuff is nice and the kids are enjoying all those PBS Kids stickers, the fake flowers, the mommy blogher tats, and the ruler/calculator. Me, I'm a sucker for tote bags, corkscrews, and a memory stick, and like that Johnson's is trying to understand mommy bloggers (if they pull it off is another thing).

The lack of lesbian/bi/transgendered voices at the breakout sessions. I agree with Denise that there was the opportunity for anyone to form a Birds of a Feather session and get together to discuss blogging as a non-white, non-hetero, non-mom, non-female persons. However, next year there MUST be sessions for this community because their voices have to be heard. Or at least experienced by white, straight mommy bloggers who like me, live in conservative, Christian communities and only see lesbians at women's college basketball games. Seeing all the dyke mommies and punk rock lesbians was kind of nice and made me long for my college days in Long Beach, CA when I was hipper about such things. It's good to stretch your world view, folks.

At Ten Types of Web Writing from Conversations with Dina, I'm the paid blogger in number 4. As for comments being closed, I've come to the conclusion that everything goes. It depends on what your goals are for your blog, something that needs to be explored more by bloggers. I was talking with Meghan of MommyBloggers about business plans after Jenn mentioned the possibility of getting venture capital financing. I started explaining about going on a retreat to discuss one year, five year and 10 year goals, and Meghan exclaimed, "What do you do?" "I'm a charter school president, I replied." Like charter schools, I believe it's valuable to think of blogs as a business, at least when it comes to setting goals for yourself.

Marketing knowledge, business plan writing, goal setting, SWOT analysis, and other business models need to be touched on and explained to bloggers who don't have marketing and business backgrounds. It's not the need to turn your blog into a business, but to help you realize why you are blogging and where you want to go with it. So I'm proposing a "What are the goals for your blog?" session at next year's conference. BlogHer organizers, are you listening?

Then there were the terrific, insightful posts that I want to point out just so I can go back and read them before BlogHer07. (Yes, I'm going and bringing the family with me. We used to live in Chicago and it's an excuse to see friends, too.)

• Culture, crowds and celebrity from Odd Time Signatures
• Mommy blogger sex radicals from Liz Henry at the Huffington Post (I was there, too!)
• BlogHer-nonymous from Media Girl
• Things I might have told you from Mom to the Screaming Masses (I'm glad I found her via a BlogHer search. Seems we're both moms armed with Epi Pens - I pick up Boo Girl's tomorrow.)
• Blog the cradle of love from Susie Bright at the Huffington Post (wow)
• Not so good stuff from Daily Dose of Denise - Damn, she hits this on the head! Why are we women so shy and can only hang out with friends? When I attended the Usborne Books convention and wanted to promote A Readable Feast, I made sure to talk to at least one person per session and give them a ClubMom water bottle with my little promotional sticker on it. Yes, it's unnerving to network, especially for an introvert like me. But I made sure I did it at BlogHer too, sitting down at random tables during breakfast and lunch, meeting with the person next to me, exchanging business cards, and talking with people at sessions. Maybe it helps that I'm naturally a loner and if I don't do this, I might as well have stayed in my hotel room all day watching HBO. I went to BlogHer to learn, and to get out of my little world.
• The BlogHer wiki created by Amy Gahran of Contentious and The Right Conversation. This is one blogger I hope to keep in touch with especially since she lives nearby and has much wisdom to offer, including a tip on the Boulder Media Women group.
• Goodbye grassroots BlogHer by Sour Duck - I've linked to her above and agree more with Denise's viewpoints. (How could the lesbians feel alone in the crowd when a sheltered, white, straight woman like me saw plenty of them?) Yet she brings up many valid issues and writes beautifully to boot.
• Great pictures (ha) of me and a Red Stapler (great concept and a cool way to network) - go to Flickr tag BlogHer and BlogHer06 for more. There's a picture of my chest out there somewhere (clothed thank you very much)
• And last, but never least, The Queen has left San Jose from Erin of Queen of Spain.

Comments

[DrumsNWhistles]

Thanks for including me in your list! I loved this whole post -- a wonderfully positive recap of all the discussions going on over Blogher. I remember this from last year as well (I didn't go last year)...huge discussions about issues raised at that conference.

This year it's about different issues, but the interesting thing is to look back and see how much was resolved coming out of last year's discussions.

I bookmarked this one in del.icio.us to read again before the Chicago conference. I'm not sure I'll get to go to that one because our travel budget gets stretched pretty thin with dancing daughter and drumming son who goes to college next year, but I'll still follow it closely.

DnW

[atalee]

I am so glad to find your blog!! It was very informative and I was glad to have found Blogher. I realize now how amateur a blogger I am and how far I can take blogging. You have inspired me and challenged me. Thank you.

[Candace]

re: What are your goals?

You're right - a lot of people blog, but they haven't really figured out/decided *why* it is they blog. I think if people recognized the different reasons for blogging we'd realize that other people may not share our same goals. People also start blogging for one reason and then change that reason - I think this is why many people become multi-blogulous.

Great post - glad I found it and you.

[Mrs. Flinger]

Thank you for the great fun down of actual facts regarding blogher. There's a lot of speculation, a lot of emotion, behind some posts but I appreciate your matter-of-fact discussion of a conference for bloggers.

I've never wanted to go more if it means I could rub shoulders with you. :-)