From Here to Autonomy

Femalities: A breakdown of SXSW and a lot of other stuff from a woman's point of view

Don't know what it is--the fact that I've just emerged from a weekend at SXSW, it was International Women's Day on Friday, I got snubbed by a "prominent" male investor/entrepreneur that in the virtual world I respected, though in person not so much--but I am feeling my womanness of late. And no, guys, it's not because it's that time of the month. If anything, it's the world who's experiencing a hormonal shift.

A digital analyst that I bumped into at SX in the lobby of the Hilton asked me what struck me as the big story at SX. I gave him a safe answer that belied the unbelievable growth the BlogHer Network has experienced on mobile platforms </shill for my company> and realized there's a better, more encompassing answer: WOMEN.

You know, those people at SX who like to hug, code, and grab coffee. They've been at SX before (we partnered with SX in '06, developing programming for them around women and have been involved as attendees or board members </shill my business partner> since). They're not really that new in the space. Like content marketing they were around in the Web 1.0 days too, but there are new distinctions that folks seem to be making, in part because, like Facebook, some broke out and went public.

Yes, we don't need to say Sheryl SANDBERG or Marissa MAYER out here. Everyone knows who you are talking about when asked, "What'd you think about Marissa's decision?" or "Lean In, you agree with Sheryl?" It may have been International Women's Day on Friday, but it seems the celebrating here in Austin was delayed for the official launch of "Lean In" instead.

Even my ungeeky friends have reached out and asked me, "So do you think this Lean In stuff is valid?" For the record (and since I was supposed to represent BlogHer on a CNN panel to discuss this Friday, but the topic was bumped to today and we talked about DOMA and Justin Bieber instead) I want to put what I thought was a damn well-conceived opinion out there, to the two of you reading my blog:

I love what Sheryl has done with her platform as resident SV untouchable badass to highlight the issue of women and work. It seems that when women who haven't taken companies public try to do so, the media responds with a tad less enthusiasm. And while I understand the criticism of some of the fembloggers who feel that Sandberg's privileged background makes her an unreliable advocate for those of us who actually have to work, I think someone had to get this conversation started. My hope and intention is to invite others to the conversation who have lived in fear of being fired and feel they have to fake leaning in, or who don't have the resources to lean in without keeling over from the exhaustion of having a full-time career and being a caregiver.

I don't believe that women have an ambition problem. When it comes to having a family and high-powered career they have a power problem.

I attended Jessica Coen's Interview of Anne-Marie Slaughter and felt for the first time in a long time like a pig in shit at a SX session. My people! And I saw plenty of men in attendance at her panel. One even approached me after I asked Anne-Marie my question (Do you think men are equally at risk of having difficulty on-ramping back into the workforce after being at home raising the kids?) and told me how he managed the transition. Finally I can come back from SX with some takeaway for my amazing Stay-at-Home Husband.

And I attended a panel led by John Gerzema that walked us through the research done for his book The Athena Doctrine--which provides powerful examples of men and women who have manifested massive change in the world by adopting feminine qualities such as flexibility, intuition, generosity, and empathy. Gerzema argues that it is the embracing of feminine traits (defined as feminine via a global survey of thousands) that is required to be effective in today's political, economic, and societal realms (and to the "professor" who took issue with Gerzema's omission of his female research partner--who did not co-author the book--on the cover: Consider the maleness of your body language and accusatory tone and Gerzema's open, accepting, perhaps FEMININE response to your attack. Personally, I prefer that he have my back).

And I capped off a long day having dinner with some crazily inspirational women who got where they are (at the top echelons of their companies and running their own) via a killer cocktail of chutzpah, yes, but also of being tireless connectors and interpreters of what the rest of us are going to care about in the future. None of them had the asshole personal interface that I experienced on Saturday, as mentioned earlier that I experienced from an investor entrepreneur who speaks a whole lot about the need to empower women entrepreneurs, just so long as he doesn't actually have to SPEAK or LOOK at any of them at SX. I must say, I've attended countless investor meetings with all-male VCs, tech conventions with mostly male attendees, board meetings with mostly male members, and never have I felt disrespected like I did when I encountered this person and said hello. (To place in Evernote in a file I've reserved for notes on a book I one day intend to write that explores the correlation of assholeness with effectiveness as a visionary. Sadly there often is one, but I'd like to make a case that there doesn't have to be).

I hung out in pubs with men and women who talked about their kids as much as their work projects and who had thoughtful commentary on Marissa Mayer's decision to reverse Yahoo's remote work policy (for the record I'm in the "she's a CEO first" camp. In the future I hope she will address the MANAGEMENT problem that led to the degradation of morale among the remote workers and re-institute flexible work policy.)

Last night, I didn't sleep, and for the first time in a long time, something other than an infant kept me up all night. I had a realization, borne of this combination of aforementioned events, that women are on the cusp of big reckonings. I can feel it pulling me out of my 5-year blogging slump.

I remain true to my belief that being a woman doesn't keep you from getting VC funding--a shitty business plan and weak management team do--and entrepreneurism is accessible to all (Steve Blank, whom I finally got to meet in person at SX, I continue to bow to you). But there continues to be a lack of respect for things female. Note again, I didn't say WOMEN, I said for things/traits female. I think that is going to change. And pretty soon.

The Parasite Economy

Who would have thunk that Gymboree could shed light on the dilemmas of tech and media businesses?

As I do every week, I was with my daughter at a play class for 2 year olds. She has a thing for picking up balls and tossing them into a bin--something I don't discourage. She's rather obsessive about it; she likes to pick up EVERY ball, even the ones in the far corners of the room. I watched her pick up on behalf of the rest of the kids, and just as she was about to toss in the last ball, a little boy intercepted it and carried it away.

My daughter looked at the boy as if to say, "Asshole, I was nearly done here." But she didn't cry. Too many times when something like this happened I'd say to her, "Share the balls, Liv." She knew she had to share.

But the incident did give me pause. This was a harmless example of interception, but what if all the balls had not been Gymboree's but actually hers? What if the kid who had intercepted the last one had not been a member of Gymboree, but some kid whose parents snuck him in and was planning to take the balls home with him? Of course, any parent would intercept and ensure that the kid did not take the balls home, let alone sell them on eBay.

As social technologies (blogging) came into the mainstream picture seven, eight years ago, we treated the Blogosphere like one big Gymboree, and everyone was a member! Everyone could start a blog! Everyone could reference each other's content and play with each other's toys (just so long as we gave the toy owners credit). The burgeoning social networks (Facebook, Linked In) were free and asked you to invite all of your friends to join in the party. We all were encouraged to share, share, share!

But now I begin to wonder how we maintain that ethos of sharing and still get credit for bringing the toys and cleaning up. I just read an interesting article--one of many lately--explaining how, as social media behemoths are evolving business models, they are also regulating the usage of their technology and limiting the open relationships they once forged. You don't get to play with the toys unless you are paying for that Gymboree membership, and even if you are, there are limits to how long you get to play with the toys--you don't get to take them home. You can't rely on unlimited access anymore, let alone the ability to profit off of them.

Companies like Buddy Media knew this would happen and got bought. It couldn't build a business off of Facebook alone; the door to building proprietary technology off of someone else's platform was closing. Lucky for the company it was able to find an acquirer before Facebook shut the door and said, our platform, our rules.

Perhaps this is what Yammer CEO David Sacks was talking about when he said (post $1B+ acquisition of his company, Yammer, by Microsoft) that there really not any new ideas brewing in the Valley, just new exploiters of those ideas. Now the real work of tech companies is not to build amazing technology, but to figure out how to own it. (A reason why, Silicon Valley, it doesn't hurt to bring in a few media/business types who are really good at keeping things for themselves).

I see this in digital media, which continues to disaggregate. The technologies that have made it so easy to share content build in value, but even now these technologies have to own something; if not the content then the means of aggregation. We've found that, after years of watching folks walk away with our toys we can't make them free anymore.

It makes me wonder what the lessons will be for my kids in the future, when they start bringing their own toys to the party. Will they be wise to share them and trust that they will get value in return?

What Pyromaniacs Can Teach Us About Content Strategy

(Correction: Apologies to the four people who read this post since I posted yesterday--the title was inaccurate. I never meant for the title to be "What Kleptomaniacs Can Teach Us About Content Strategy", but rather, "What PYROmaniacs Can Teach Us..." I was exhausted while eaking out the thoughts in that post and surely meant the reference to be to Pyromania, as I have no idea how Content Strategy relates to Kleptomania. Surely that's another post. Thanks to those of you who read the post and kindly said nothing, thinking I would read this post again in a more rested frame of mind and realize that I was making no sense.)

Despite my many career reinventions, there has been a thematic commonality in all of my jobs: content. Sometimes I create it, sometimes I sell it,  always I pitch it. Despite the twists and turns that interactive technology has forged in the media world, content has still come to the forefront as not only a differentiator but a media strategy.

Early in my career I could not have cared less about how to promote good content, or how to disseminate it, or how to do deals that would increase its exposure. I just wanted to create and consume interesting shit. Period. The past 18 years has been an exercise in learning the business around good content; not a wasted effort given the most recent bend in media toward self publishing, or personal empire-building. Content creators who are not good alliance builders or marketers have a tougher time monetizing their passion to create good content. Show me a purist who refuses to learn the trade of promoting her (or someone else's) content, and I'll show you someone with low traffic. The problem for me, personally, has been spending so much time on the empire building side of the equation that content creation eludes me.

I recall a seminal point in my career when I was a content manager and made the choice to cross over to the revenue generation side. It seemed that content creation wasn't such a challenge or talent, but monetizing it was. But, 13 years later, that's simply not the case. Brands need a content strategy to compete, just as content creators such as bloggers need to learn about the business of content.

A number of sources in my online reading today point to what is undeniably a renewed appreciation for content as a business builder, from Altimeter's fascinating study on the rebalancing of brand marketing toward content creation, to questions on Quora about how to become a content manager (hilarious, since bloggers and former book/magazine editors gone online were ghettoized into this bucket before it became cool), to pieces for marketers about how content can bolster their brand identity and hit KPIs.

Of course, given my background in media, I am inclined to say no duh to all of this. Even before I moved to online pastures I worked in print syndication for The New York Times and Time Inc. Custom Publishing where we developed content for brands that wanted to attract or retain customers by providing informational, even inspirational, value. Even then, the value of good content was appreciated.

But that reaction isn't really taking into account how social media has transformed content creation. Back in 1999, I was purely a content creator, not a marketer, and not a community builder. You told me what content you wanted and I created or found it. Now, content creation is so much more than that. It's applying a marketing strategy to content strategy; it's applying a working knowledge of the technology, and the principles of  trust across the social graph. The content must be good, but it must also be where the right people are, and offered in a way that will inspire them to share, and will back into business objectives.

Content creation is, in effect, firestarting. And this firestarting is no longer accomplished by lighting a match under an already-established, mainstream publisher. I'm not a true pyro, but I do know it's a sustained effort and begins in the grassroots. Mostly it's knowing everything about your materials, and how small embers can build over time, with the help of other traveling sparks. Sometimes the secret isn't brilliance; it's spotting when something is catching and then knowing which way to blow.

My complicated relationship with SXSW: An Overview

Five years ago I attended my first SXSW Interactive conference. I was speaking on a panel--part of a series of panels that BlogHer produced for SX to raise the event's profile among women on the web (and it worked!). That SX I did everything you could at SXSW:

• Sat on a panel about Naked Blogging
• Attended panels
• Held a meet-up where all I can recall was BBQ and drinks in plastic cups.
• Went to others' meet-ups
• Did a book signing
• Sat for a Studio SX interview
• Presented at 20x2
• Stayed at a hotel within the vicinity of the conference center--meaning I booked well in advance. And I had a buddy crash in the room one night.
• Bumped into bloggy peeps in the hallway
• Met people who were doing cool stuff just to do cool stuff

BlogHer had held its first event, but we weren't yet a business--more a project that covered its costs. Venture capital was not even on our horizon yet.

I remember feeling badly that after a whole day of attending sessions I hadn't blogged my experience. In between sessions I looked for outlets to plug in my laptop and then jotted down my notes. I didn't have a modem, and the wireless wasn't good, so I waited to get to my hotel room before posting anything.

I went to the next year's SXSW, which was fun as well. I headed up a panel on blogs and brands--a provocative pairing at the time. There seemed to be more bloggy peeps there, even a few individuals from the corporate side who were digital adventurists. They'd sponsored booths at events like ours and somehow got approval to go to SX. Still, if you weren't a tech startup, it was hard to get the funding.

I also remember that this tool called Twitter dominated everyone's mindspace. I thought that while it was useful to helping me find people at SX it was a distraction to writing my blog.

The next year I skipped SXSW. My company received its first round of venture funding, and I was traveling 80 percent of the time (or so it seemed) to visit with companies who were opening to the blogging/social media space. As much as I loved to see my blog buddies, I reasoned that I could do that as well back at home in Silicon Valley. This just wasn't a must-do.

The following year I wasn't planning on attending SX, but a client asked me to sit on a panel of his--making the trip to Austin that I had once considered a geek excursion a full-fledged business trip. We partnered with another organization to hold a meet-up. Guy geeks, lady bloggers, and social media gurus attended, with flecks of brand people interspersed rather obviously, like tin foil pieces in a soft chocolate chip cookie. One of my clients wanted to bring his boss to our event and asked for a run down in advance, to prepare him for what his boss would encounter. I didn't know what to tell him; this was SX--a place where geeks held court and brands could learn things if they let geeks drink and free associate.

I recall attempting an introduction of a marketer to a Web guru; it was very difficult to do while trapped in a headlock.

Though I was attending officially "on business" I felt a flash of 2005 hit me as I bumped into old friends at the bar. Women who had attended the first BlogHer, back when we had collected $20 at the door and had a Tex-Mex and sangria as our pre-event activity--and everyone attended (no other parties to go to). Back when no one had budget for socializing with bloggers, let alone brand dollars for it. When you just went because it was part of the experience of belonging.

I recall ducking into and out of sessions that year--I had a load of conference calls I had to jump on. Later I went to an offsite session to visit with some clients. It seemed the brands were picking up on SX, but still mainly congregating on the periphery of it.

Other brands, like PepsiCo, had seen the potential for getting in front of many tech influencers and built activations outside of the exhibitor hall. Now you could get a sample of a PepsiCo beverage before heading out to eat wherever there was a shorter line on Sixth street.

The next year I missed SX. I was in Europe on business and thought about cutting my trip short to come to SXSW. But I was also pregnant, and somehow this condition seemed antithetical to the eat/drink-what-you-can and sleep-when-you-can ethos of SX.

This year I wasn't planning on going. I had just returned from maternity leave and was protective of my weekends. But colleagues asked if I was going, and I have had this feeling lately of a new wave of change coming over brands, the community, the whole online ecosystem. I knew that I needed re-infusion, if you will, of the excitement that I felt at my first SX.

Back then, I felt like I had most of the answers, or at least more experience than the people sitting in the audience. Hell, even when I was in the audience I felt like I had more answers. This cockiness had shifted. I wasn't speaking this year, just listening. Pulse-taking.

Some immediate observations:

• SX is now brand marketing boot camp. At most of the parties I hung with brand marketers who were activating at SX, participating on panels, or just meeting their digital marketing obligations and making the pilgrimmage to Austin to hopefully learn by osmosis. I knew that many folks would be there, and saw many more still. I didn't feel that this diluted the techy cred of the event, but rather validated it. Especially witnessing the sponsorships, which were much more integrated into the event--woven into the fabric of SX, if you will, rather than glued on like tacky applique rhinestones.

• Mobile obsession: At one point I caught the insanity of a moment at SX: At a party on a rooftop, with Chris Cornell playing an acoustic set below, sitting at a round table with people I've known in some cases since 2005, and all of us are texting, tweeting, or emailing on our mobile devices. Arriving at the conference center I see people waiting for their coffees, browsing the Web on their phones in the meantime. Some of it seemed a simple indication of the crowd that comes to SX. Some of it seemed obnoxious. And yet, in moments of downtime--driving into town, waiting to meet friends, waiting to be seated for dinner, etc--I didn't know what else to do with myself.

• The people. Even back in 2005, SX was the mother online event--EVERYBODY went to SX. But now EVERYBODY has gotten larger. Add the brands, the agencies, the digital shops, the iPhone app developers, the social celebs, and associated spouses, significant others, and even in a few cases mothers in law/nannies, and you have a sea of people. "Bumping into" people at SX just doesn't  happen anymore; you need to be a lot more deliberate about meeting people. Hence, the texting and tweeting ...

• Content: In 2005 I wouldn't have dreamed of missing session time. I went to sessions because goshdarnit I paid for my plane ticket to SX, I was goig to LEARN something. Or show off all that I knew, pick one. This year, with my desire to be a sponge I attempted to review the agenda and felt like I was drowning in quicksand. There have always been too many sessions at SX--I expected that much. But so many of the sessions struck me as poorly concepted--too niche or too broad. And some seemed to be too commercial--a small digital shop's presentation of their client work.

Now I must caveat here that I took in very little content this year. In some cases I was on my way to a session when a chance encounter or another experience sucked me in. Also I experienced what I hear so often from attendees at my own conference--a desire to have a more personalized experience. A friend of mine runs Tech Set and invited me to her lounge in the convention center. I found myself drawn into what I will call a "Curated Content Experience"--short interviews and activations that she culled for a single sponsor. I took them in as I chose to, while connecting with other bloggers and brands. The environment offered a nice combination of both.

Seeing this sponsored, curated model leads to my next observation ...

• Smarter brand activations: I've got no beef with brand sponsorships--they power my business. Since I spend an inordinate amount of time working with brands on activities that will enhance their relationships with influencers I consider myself somewhat of an expert on this--actually that's false modesty, I AM AN EXPERT on this subject.

SX has certainly run a trajectory similar to BlogHer's, in that a community driven event has attracted brands and initially accepted their dollars with some trepidation and insistence on church-state separation, but has now seemed to loosen up a bit to allow brands to actually impact the experience of the event in a positive way.

I got sweaty in the way only social media event sponsorship people could when I saw the integration of HP's ePrint functionality with SX's mobile agenda app. Don't want to lug that catalog of a printed agenda around with you? Print out the parts that you want, or only the parties if that's preferable.

Later I learned that HP held food trailers outside the event with, you know, REAL FOOD. For when you've had it up to here with drinking alcohol and eating passed greasy party food and nacho buffets. Ummm brilliant! Same to Samsung for allowing SX snobs like me feel like they have a place to put down their swag and scarf chocolate in between sessions. Ditto to PepsiCo for not only providing a lounge at SX but even integrating great interviews/content with established media (Fast Company).

And then there was Mac Daddy sponsor, Tagged, who knew EXACTLY who they wanted to court at SX and provided limo service gratis to members of SMAC (the Social Media Advertising Consortium)--primarily agencies and social media publishers. A fellow named Gary carted me from the airport to my hotel and from the convention center to a session I wanted to attend way the hell off the grid. Which leads me to my next observation.

• Infrastructure issues: So I was one of those fools who booked my hotel in January and had to commute to and from the conference. I'm told I was lucky--some people I encountered were forced to contemplate $500+ hotel rooms and apartments in Lubbock. But as a SX alum I felt very removed from things. And not knowing for certain if I would be able to find a cab/pedicab/shuttle back to my hotel impacted my evening plans. That day that I checked into a hotel off I-35 I wanted to say to the poor gal sharing the elevator with me, "I used to be within a three-block radius of the convention center, y'know! I used to be SOMEBODY!" But now I was like all the other kids from the suburbs, paying my ludicrous fee and bussing my way in to the cool part of town.

One of the van drivers even tried to rip me off--twice! I was told I could pay a one time $50 fee for the van, or $10 for a one off trip. I was lucky to have caught Gary on duty a few times and only needed a ride for my last trip to the convention center before heading to the airport. I handed the driver a $20, expecting $10 back.

"Wow," he said. "Thanks for the tip!" I noticed a sign on the window that indicated tips were appreciated, not required.

"I haven't paid you a tip," I said. "Ten back please." He gave me $10, and I gave him $2. Then, when we got to the convention center some dude with a clipboard says to me, "$10, ma'am," and when I tell him I've already paid, gets uppity with me. "You aren't supposed to pay the driver!" he says.

Of course I secretly love these situations that invite me to show my fangs.

"I'm not giving you anything," I said. "Get it from your driver!"

I walked away as the driver insisted that I hadn't paid--I just paid him a $12 tip.

Wow, I thought, with all the people that are here this year, a whole new form of hucksterism.

I check my luggage at the Hilton, much to their irritation, I surmise, seeing as I didn't stay there, and hail a cab from there. As my driver, who didn't look unlike Sam Elliott, cautiously makes his way through the throng of digital humanity, I strike up conversation.

"It's nuts this year, huh?" I say.

"Nuts?" he replies. "You're getting out of here before the REAL crowds arrive."