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Post-BlogHer '09: A Reminder of the Power of Listening to Influentials

My latest on Jack Myers.com. BlogHer '09 from the marketer's perspective

Some thoughts on BlogHer'09: A founder's and a blogger's view

Every year after BlogHer, I take a few days to take in the wrap-ups and accounts and to assess the role our event, and even our organization, plays in the women's Blogosphere. It's a level of introspection that I rarely achieve anymore on my personal blog, but considering that this blog, and the opportunities it created for me, are what encouraged me to take on BlogHer with Lisa and Elisa to begin with, so it seems appropriate.

If you read my personal blog you will notice a few things, other than I post so rarely that I am no longer participating in the BlogHer Ad Network (our community managers practice what we preach when we say you must post regularly to run ads!), namely this:

• I'm not a Mommyblogger
• I've never participated in a review program. In fact, the reviews I have written were mostly posted without the publisher even being aware I was planning to (I've only reviewed books and the occasional film). Many of the books I bought myself and felt moved to review them.
• I've never made more than $40 a month on my ads, never had Google Ads or BlogAds supplementing my BlogHerAds, never placed an affiliate tag or ad on my site, or ever optimized my site for making money (something my husband questions me about constantly)

Notes on Planning BlogHer--the Fifth Time Around

Prepping for BlogHer is, for me, like prepping for a wedding. You hear of what all of your guests are doing, packing, wearing. And yet for you it's like being in a bubble, even among throngs of people. You have to make sure you are getting things done. It's utterly anti-social, which is challenging for a social being.

And there are so many things to plan.

• Speaking notes--check
• Press meeting schedule--check
• Sponsor engagements--check
• Special events before, during, and after--check
• Underwear--seriously, I have forgotten before
• Booking info

For me, BlogHer is like a wedding because it's a coming-together of some of the most disparate groups. I recall at my own wedding seeing my California buddies chatting with my brother (who had never been out of the Midwest) and my business partners and thinking, "Where will I ever see THIS again?" BlogHer can feel very similar. Of course, you have your blog peeps, but there are the blog peeps I first met because I was a hard-core blogger and met them through reading them, and there were some I met later, as BlogHer grew and developed, and whom I got to know through the business. There are the employees of BlogHer, many of whom have embraced the community but have entered it in a different way. There's my husband, who agrees every year to this surreal experience of being around many women and asking us, "What do you need?" There's my mother, a long-time member of this community, and my twin sister, an absolute newbie, who will be there. There will be old friends from traditional media who have begun to embrace blogging, press, and of course sponsors--a group you can divide many ways, from small start-ups dipping a toe in the space to larger companies bringing throngs of people to work their booth and be exposed to the event. There will be women that I don't know but who will know me and introduce themselves, and women I've met but can't remember when I met them--what year, which conference? There will be women I'm close to now but don't recall exactly why; just over time it worked out that way. There are offline friends who are going for the first time, and offline heroes who, now online, will be speaking. There will be investors and partners and hotel staff and celebrities and ... breathe.

You can't plan for all that. Like a wedding, you just have to know your lines, try your best to take it all in, and, if possible, remember to eat and not accidentally tuck your skirt in your panties when you come out of the bathroom.

A few years ago I realized there is only so much you can plan. Sure, you have to know your obligations, but if you try to plan too much at BlogHer, you will be disappointed. You have to see what carries you. One year, I vowed to go to sessions, and I ended up in discussions with women I met in the hallway. It was time well-spent. For me, it was a needed catch-up with the community.

It's also important to have your own experience. I love "losing" Elisa and Lisa for a day. We often wander in our own directions and then have totally different stories to share with each other from the event, from conversations within panels to late night karaoke.

Some "Favorites" I've developed since the first BlogHer in 2005:

Favorite Day of the event: Saturday. Friday is usually spent running around and making sure everything is all set. Saturday I usually get to sit in sessions and have an extra glass of wine that night.

Things I never plan: meals

Things that get planned the weekend before: What I'm wearing, my schedule

Things that get planned a few days before: What Elisa, Lisa and I are going to say in the opening session. Though once it was the day before. Never again.

Biggest regret: I never get to do any of the hands-on sessions, and as a result I'm still at the blog skill level I was at in 2005.

Biggest anxiety: I forget to thank someone.

Thing I promise to do every year: Party more; stay up, and yet somehow sleep more.

Thing I forget to include in my schedule: Seeing people and catching up; spontaneous interviews.

Thing I've stopped doing for sanity's sake: Trying to troubleshoot sponsors' tech issues. Trying to memorize sponsor announcements without my notes; hold business meetings onsite. 

Things we always promise to do better next year: Not run out of tickets, be even greener.

Things I always promise to do better next year. Bring more comfortable shoes; not overbook myself.

Thing I've finally done this year that I should have done in the past: Scheduled a few days off immediately afterward.

What "BaconSalt" Taught Me About Building Brand Fanaticism in Social Media

A chance encounter while traveling gave me a new lease on the power of food blogging and tapping foodies of all stripes to make things happen.

Dispatches from the Monaco Media Forum

This was my second year of klatsching with leaders in the media technology space. This event is a personal luxury, and not just because it's in Monte-Carlo, though that helps. It's also a place where I get to take two steps back and look at the emerging view of new media.

There definitely were some highlights:

--Tina Brown was interviewed by Larry Kramer about her foray into new media, The Daily Beast. This was a big deal for me because I got my career start in print and have always respected her work. Now, here she was, a newcomer in this space. She was asked if she would go back if she was offered a chi-chi print job again. She said no--online is where it's at.

I asked her about a comment she had made on the Colbert Report: something about the Web freeing her to do what she couldn't get away with in print. I thought that was a curious statement, as I've found blogging puts your writing under an even finer microscope. While more voices can be heard, more voices can be heard commenting, correcting, and taking issue with what you say.

Over breakfast with Tina and her General Manager Caroline Marks, I learned what she really meant by that. Tina loves to make changes at the last minute, and get scoops without worrying about losing them. The Web is so much more immediate. While 10,000-word pieces in The New Yorker provide depth, the Web provides immediacy and instant connection to audience. These things are just what freak out most print editors, especially ones that built their careers on print, but she embraces the user on the Web.

My favorite content: Not my session I'm afraid. We suffered from panelitis--too many panelists. By the time we got through with introducing ourselves there was scant time for questions. And I wanted to sit with all of them and talk shop. At least I got to learn about some pretty cool projects:

Amra Tareen, allvoices
Reggie Brandford, Vitrue
Hans Peter Brondmo, Plum
Johan Pouwelse, Tribler
Sadato Tanaka, Enigmo

And our moderator, John Clippinger, of the Berkman Center at Harvard

I think there was one picture taken of me--the only proof I have of attending this year

I'm fighting jet lag at this point. Thanks, eirikso, for the proof.

I took copious notes during Jeffrey Cole's State of the Mediasphere keynote. Some key takeaways:

• "Old media" doesn't disappear; it adapts. Think radio after television was invented; it created partnerships that allowed it to remain relevant. Movie studios learned to monetize in other ways when people stopped going to movie theaters. TV may be challenged with moving ad budget, but it will explode in growth as it moves content online.
• The average household spends $260 per month on services that didn't exist just a few years ago. And wealth doesn't determine usage; the poorest households still spend $180 a month.
• There are three ways to get content: 1) steal it--not viable; 2) make it fee-based, which only works for the most premium, proprietary content; and 3)advertising--now accepted as the price for free content. But if your ads don't work, the public will tell you. (My addition: so now the key is to create better ways of advertising and engagement.)

Social highlights: Wine tasting, BTYB Accel Partners, who shipped over top California wines, along with wine educators in the Napa region (They had one of my favorites, Chapellet) and dinner at the Hotel de Paris--the reason why, this year, I brought a dress. I made a major gaffe last year when I interpreted "Business Casual" to mean what it does in Palo Alto. In Monaco it means not Black Tie, but step it up, nonetheless.

The place was gawrgeous.

Photo by hebig

Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School won the Monaco Media Forum Prize, given by His Serene Highness, Prince Albert II.

Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz of VPOD TV took this shot.

I caught up with some folks I know:

• Mariana Danilovic: My Monaco buddy. A woman who epitomizes girl in tech. Likes shoes, likes geeking out on business models.
• Kevin Welsh of Antics Digital Marketing. I met him and his lovely wife last year.
• Jason Goldberg: The dynamo who brought you Jobster and is now knee-deep in his latest adventure socialmedian
• Dina Kaplan, Blip.TV COO and Co-founder. I always like seeing her!
• Auren Hoffman, Rapleaf--Since 2000 I've seen Auren just about everywhere, a side effect of working for start-ups in the Valley and at one time living blocks away from each other. He makes Monaco feel like home. Auren, gimme another study I can cite about women on the Web!
• Randall Rothenberg, Interactive Advertising Bureau. No conference that looks at the state of the digital advertising world is complete without this man. Pick. His. Brain.
• Lisa Sounio of Dopplr, along with her entrepreneur husband. Someone who will make the fun if she isn't having it. (Loved the tie!)
• Dave Sifry, Offbeat Guides: Dave talked about his latest endeavor which actually has a PRINT component. Think print on demand meets travel search. Too cool.
• Jennifer Schenker, Businessweek. We met earlier this year in Greece. I love that things are heating up in Europe.
• Spencer Reiss, Wired contributing Editor, and the guy who made the program possible. Nice work! Being a programming Chair is alot like herding cattle, isn't it?
• Alexis Maybank, Alexandra Wilson, Gilt Groupe. I met Alexandra in New York earlier this year and still insist their luxury shopping club would go over like chocolate at BlogHer. They announced their new CEO, Susan Lyne, earlier this year.
• Jamie Kantrowitz, MySpace, UK
• Esther Dyson, always challenging the status quo, and not letting the Facebook person steal the floor.
• Jack Myers: The one and only. My latest post went up while we were in Monaco.
• Nancy Cruikshank of Videojug. Always interesting to talk to her about the business of video content in the UK.

And some new people:

• Jonas Nordlund, Digital Image, SA: Superentrepreneur. He indulged me as I asked countless questions about what it's like to live in Monaco.
• Johnathan Medved, Vringo: A serendipitous connection, as we both were up at 4:30 a.m. to catch our flight from Nice. Great travel conversation about life in Jerusalem (his, not mine), families, the economy, my experience as a Shabbas Goy...
• Simon Waldman of Guardian Media Group
• Dan Scheinman and Danielle Barbieri of Cisco Media Solutions. Cool people who are local! We chatted on the way to the hotel about Cisco's blogging/enterprise publishing solution
• Larry Kramer, Polaris Ventures, (founder of MarketWatch).
• Richard Greenfield of Pali Capital: I saw RIchard when he moderated a panel with MySpace's Chris DeWolfe last year. This year we got to chat briefly.

A lot for 36 hours.

BlogHer'08

It has become a bit of a tradition after the BlogHer conference for me to sit and read as much as humanly possible about the conference--the overwhelming good and the smattering of less good. Of course, when something is your baby the bad sticks in your mind, but over the years I've become much better at giving things their proportional due. Sometimes there are other circumstances in play, facts not understood or known by the blogger, and sometimes it's just good feedback for the future.

I've been asked what were highlights for me at BlogHer, and after much thought I have the following list:

--The Community Keynote: Hands down, loved it. Before BlogHer was a twinkle in anyone's eye I was a personal/Naked blogger. I believe in the power of blogs (not for shilling despite the fact I head up Sponsorship and have the role of announcing where you all can find the free stuff at BlogHer) but for transformation and blowing people's minds. With each person who presented I felt that I was up there onstage with her. No, I don't have kids, but I was pumping my fist with Danielle, and holding Yvonne while she spoke, and entranced with how good Antonia could make the word "fart" sound with her uber-sophisticated British accent, and frankly a bit confused by The Bloggess. But it all spoke to me somehow, and to the different Jorys that I don't get to tap daily.

--My Naked Panel: (brilliant write-up Rachel) ...And not just because I moderated it. Full disclosure: I don't pick the panels I'm going to moderate. Elisa asks me and I do it. I'm the Naked blogger amongst the founders and hence, I get to moderate the Naked panels. I had some initial doubts about moderating this year because, frankly, I'm not as naked as I used to be. I can totally relate to Mena, who had a bit of an identity crisis and ratcheted back her public personal blogging to avoid offending or negatively impacting her business. I don't mean to say that if the gloves were off I'd be swinging at bloggers, but with a business and a public face comes mucho considerations. One blogger who is building her business said to me at the conference: "You think I would be looked at seriously by a VC if I wrote about taking Paxil?" And honestly I don't know. I hope that eventually we can build businesses and be completely known for it all, but let's face it, we ain't there yet.

I also had some misgivings for the whole "naked" franchise. I mean, is there still such a thing as naked blogging, or has all personal blogging become somewhat naked? Is there really still such a distinction? And I also worried about the safety of my panelists--one of whom was not to have been identified outside of the room for issues of physical security--and due to the controversial nature of what some of them have dealt with. And finally, I didn't want to scare people off from the notion of disclosure on their blogs. So much of what BlogHer is about is peeling layers and being seen for who we are.

All this said, it couldn't have gone better. My panelists were so open about the issues associated with naked blogging without coming off as alarmist--and they had the right to be. I felt they were "naked" in their disclosures, even when discussing why they were pulling back. I felt the palpable pain bloggers like Mena and Tracey Gaughran-Perez felt when the sense of security they had felt with blogging was compromised, especially after the disclosure of a blogger attending the session who had been stalked and insulted, even after the death of her child. Trolls was a big topic in this panel and in the closing keynote. And to this day, three years after a panel Liza Sabater led on dealing with the negativity in the Blogosphere, I still don't get the need for others to, as Tracey said, "take a dump on your blog and walk away."

--My peeps. In 2005 I lost 5-10 pounds the week of BlogHer. There was just so much to do I couldn't contemplate eating. My biggest fear was not thanking someone properly who needed to be thanked in our announcements. In 2006, I clutched my Yahootini at the end of Day 1 and prayed that the wireless would work better tomorrow. I realized that I needed to experience more of the "magic" that we were creating at these events, even while making sure our sponsors and attendees were happy. In 2007 we added Kristy Sammis to the mix and found that having someone with some mad organizational skills and a wicked sense of humor running the logistics of the event was very necessary for the three co-founders to truly experience the community we were still part of but in some ways removed from by virtue of serving it--it made me sad in '06, and in '07 it went away. And I owe a lot to Kristy for that.

In '08 it was even more palpable, this sense of inspiration that made me personally want to make BlogHer a bigger part of my life. And in no small way this is because of Kristy and others who shared the work--and believe me, it IS work--to bring something I could never have imagined creating myself. What kinda brings tears to my eyes is not only the dedication of our team, who stayed and smiled throughout the event and made it their mission to make others smile, but also their SPOUSES and SIGNIFICANT OTHERS who did the same. Jeanne Beacom (the blonde with the red bow in her hair; and yes, she's over 21, despite those who thought she was a minor) and Micah (if I've misspelled, I beg forgiveness), Kristy's better half, Pete (dude, did you actually help all the sponsors pack up their stuff at the end of the day???), Joy Johnson and Trip (who outlasted me at the Newbie party, and thanks, Trip, for grabbing me a glass of wine). Spencer Owens, who may have been mistaken for Edward Norton a few times and unwittingly found himself being interviewed and branded "man at BlogHer", who represented and even brought his wife, Katherine and little Zia. Miriam Anton, who came to us just two months ago but who owned this event and even brought Ruben, her husband, to the party to experience BlogHer, and Heather David, someone who, four months ago, thought she was going to be writing a book, but we needed her, and so she became the human database of everything sponsor-related. Heather, I promise you, that book will be the first on the booksigning table at BlogHer '09.

And, of course, Chris Carfi (who just sort of reduces stress when he's in the room and endured being called Mr. Stone) and my Sweetie, Jesse, who always claims he's not going to do very much and then fixes things. He even let me know when my thong was visible--you just don't get that kind of help normally.

--The Sponsorships: No this isn't Jory-justifies-her-existence time. This is my heartfelt feeling on this. Since this aspect of the conference became my bailiwick I have moved much of the energy I once placed on my blogging to working with companies to "get it right". And no, not everyone considers sipping wine in the shoe department of Macy's as paradise, although many do, and just the willingness--or more accurately, the EXCITEMENT--of Macy's to provide this experience for the bloggers tickled me. The conversations over the years have changed. Fewer companies refuse to sponsor unless they get a demo or 15 minutes to pitch. More ask me, "how can we make this fun?" or meaningful and then bend over backwards to do just that. This year, they rolled out the red carpet to the bloggers and said, "walk on it, or not. Just know you are welcome."

I got up superearly with 30 or so bloggers who attended the yoga class sponsored by Boca. Boca provided the mats, then let our local instructor take it away, Namaste! Michelin provided test drives and dinner for a few bloggers who stuck around on Sunday. Their mission: to expose bloggers to the brand without interrupting their conference experience. GM was ultimately focused on getting bloggers to the event, period, not on distracting them once they got there. Nintendo, Intuit, HP, Microsoft, iRobot, TNT, Starbucks, Greenopolis, Sesame Workshop, and so many others, just wanted to give folks an experience, a service, and yes, a makeover, if desired. 

So this seems like a nice segue into what I didn't love seeing at BlogHer this year.

--*SOME* of the additional parties. Some people attend conferences like SXSW for the afterparties alone. Who am I to even TRY to make a dent in what has become the parade of extravaganzas for women who have come all this way to meet each other? It wouldn't be very BlogHer of me to go there.

But, taking off the BlogHer co-founder hat for a moment, I thought a few of them were borderline disrespectful of bloggers at the event. I don't agree that you can really have a "community" party by attempting to drag bloggers from the conference during their community keynote, or any of the regular programming. Some of these events are pre-arranged with bloggers, and they go to these events willingly, and in my mind are "above-board". Still, I think that planning events during BlogHer programming is ultimately confusing and dampens their experience. I tell this to all paying sponsors and I'll tell this to the ones who don't financially support BlogHer: please schedule your events so that they don't compete with content or networking. Ultimately the bloggers are here for this purpose. And those sponsors and non-sponsors who asked for best times to schedule a non-BlogHer event, thanks for asking!

There's also an exclusivity issue. If you are going to have an invite-only party, please manage it, and please have a plan for what you are going to do (other than take swag away from them) if other bloggers attend. Last year I got wind of an invite-only event that occurred during our cocktail party that blew up for this reason. We could have helped plan this better. To my delight, this year parties were much more inclusive, and the exclusive parties didn't scream, "you can't come!"

But ultimately, I have nothing against cheeseburgers. Especially afterhours. Rock on!

Freeloaders: Some folks crossed the line of what I thought was cool. Please note: Just because you are handing out free chocolate does not mean that you get a free pass to BlogHer, or that you get to circumvent the hundreds of women who tried to register but couldn't because we reached building capacity, or the sponsors who paid to support the bloggers. Sorry to have to have kicked out a "gentleman" at the Unconference, but I suppose you are now aware of how it works.

I've tried to remove the co-founder bias from this and actually can't completely. I--and the team--bust our asses on making this the most incredible event for bloggers by bloggers, and sometimes it really offends me personally when folks who know BlogHer and know me want to suck up the oxygen we've created rather than add to it. And I don't have the luxury of singling out those that I feel take advantage of our all-inclusiveness.

And to my professional friends: please don't put me in the position of having to tell you you can't come into parties with me because you failed to register on time. Again, there were SO MANY women who could not attend BlogHer because we were past capacity, and because some of you snuck in we were short food and beverage at some of the events. Some of you took advantage of the fact that I wouldn't ask you to leave because I really like you. But it actually embarrassed me. This isn't "Jory's party" it's BlogHer's party. It's not up to me to decide who gets let in and who doesn't.

--Not enough water at the parties: What? You mean there are people who attend who don't drink alcohol? Suggestion duly noted.

--Unfortunate events that may have happened on or offsite at BlogHer. I've read accounts from people who on their way to BlogHer, or during BlogHer, have had some horrible experiences not related to the conference. Perhaps they couldn't afford the trip or became sick, or became sicker.

I can't tell you how sad this makes me. I still have the mentality that I did growing up and wanting everyone to come to the party, and I want anyone who attends to have a meaningful experience. In several instances if a company could not afford to sponsor BlogHer (or didn't want to), I turned them to a blogger who needed sponsorship. At the end of the day, it's all about giving people the chance to be here, or experience it somehow. So when I read about some people who may have felt excluded, or that BlogHer (this giant, amorphous bitch) somehow wouldn't include them, or help them, I wanted to fly out to sit with them all personally and tell them it couldn't be further from the truth.

I won't make excuses for us. We don't have any, nor is there a need for any. We put our hearts and souls into this event, and that's it.

Hugs to the hundreds of women I met, and those I didn't but who smiled at me while I ran from this end to that. I can't thank you enough for being there. You all make me want to keep at this gig.

On Having a Life--Monaco, a New Jersey preschool, Vegas, my whereabouts this past month

I once wrote a piece for no one's eyes but my own--this was pre-blog era, so there really was nowhere to post this thing--called "The Editor". I didn't know why I wrote the piece at the time; looking back I think I was feeling frustrated as a writer who wasn't able to run with the bulls and then jot down the experience over shots of whiskey; my most fruitful writing experiences didn't align with times when I was most physically able to write.

This year has reeked of that same alienation. A lot has happened this year--a lot that I could make more sense of if I just had the opportunity to mull them over on Pause. But I've had to settle for scraps of time, and knowing that I was writing in shortcuts, not fully fleshing out much of anything. Getting notes of support back from the community has been on the one hand incredibly gratifying, and on the other incredibly sad. I know that if we spoke on the phone, they would sound a lot like my mother, who supports my adventures and wishes I was blogging again at the same time.

Back to my Roots: The Ladies who Launch Conference

For the past year now, I've spoken quite often about crossing the chasm between advertisers and bloggers. Earlier this year I was asked to sit on a panel for a Ladies Who Launch event in San Francisco to speak about, well, me, and my entrepreneurial journey--such a departure to discussing the merits of blogging, or the power of word-of-mouth marketing!

And yet, this event appealed to me in a way the others didn't. It reminded me of my days of yore, when I actually wrote about the seeds of creation, what brought me to starting a business with Lisa and Elisa, a pivotal time when your foundation for moving forward is built. A time when your previous world has blown up--it has to be blown up, or you'll spend too much energy trying to keep the past intact and not moving forward.

The event was not in any way a traditional conference-like format. Sure, there were panels and interviews, but in back were small businesses selling merchandise and lots of shopping. It turned me off initially--why do we always assume that if women are involved we need to have jewlery and cute things lining the place? But as I got to speaking to the women in the booths I realized they were a re-enforcement of the message behind this event: Anything is possible, and we can help each other get there. What better way of telling the story of your business than having your business brought to the event?

I spoke on a panel of media experts, including the hilarious Randy Peyser, CEO of her own business and author of Crappy to Happy, and The Write-a-Book Program: How to Position Yourself as an Expert by Writing a Book, and the epitome of Chutzpah. She told her story of following her dream and having nothing to show for it initially--except for a single box of baking soda in the fridge (been there!)--she opted to stand out on the highway with a sign "Editor seeking publisher." Incidentally, it worked.

The lesson from her story: It usually takes an act of faith (and insanity) to make a dream happen. And by the way, I could tell that being crazy was not a typical thing in Randy's life; she had to aspire to being crazy. A lot of people think that some people are born with the crazy gene and some aren't. I subscribe to a different theory, we are all born meant to be awake and alive, and those who go through this life without asking themselves if they are passionate about what they do are the ones who are crazy.

When asked about advice I had to making an entrepreneurial vision happen, I had a fairly amorphous answer; this is what I wanted to say: We are born with an obligation to ourselves to do what we are meant to do. Seeing our lives failing to commit to ourselves is often what pushes us over the edge. Personally, I couldn't stand myself any longer, and neither could the people who worked next to me. I brooded and complained once a quarter about not being utilized fully. Be warned: expect to be utilized on the entrepreneurial journey, OVER-utilized, in fact. Expect to have to do some outlandish things like get on airplanes and talk about things like you are the expert. Realize you are the expert and just do them.

Also on the panel is a woman I've been wanting to meet for quite some time--Kate Everett Thorp of Real Girls Media. Being the head of a digital media company, I thought I knew her story, but I didn't. Hearing Kate describe how her mother was instrumental to helping her commit to things at a young age, and how her husband left his work as an engineer to take care of their three children, I realized there are no easy peasy ways of becoming an entrepreneur. Some of us sacrifice more than others, some of us get funded sooner, but none of us had an easy ride. None of us did this without help. The more we tell our stories, the more we free up other women to take the plunge.

A handful of women came up to me, I had assumed, to ask me about blogging. Some did want advice. And three asked me, with shyness, what's a blog? I had to laugh appreciatively; I came equipped to tell of how blogging would increase entrepreneurs' visibility, but it seemed that my expertise was less interesting than my experience. The part I don't share in keynotes--how freaking hard it is to start something no one has done before. Working through uncertainty and learning much more about what you want through discovering what doesn't work for you.

One woman approached me whom I hadn't seen in years. I found it ironic that she'd approached me, since years ago I'd seen her speak, and later she'd become one of my inspirations. In fact, I wrote about her when I embarked on a previous entrepreneurial journey. Here's a snippet:

Notes from the Stream Event in Athens

So once in a while I attend an event that I can say rivals BlogHer in personality (never beats, of course, just rivals). Stream07 was a special event hosted by Martin Sorrell of WPP and tech entrepreneur Yossi Vardi. When I decided to go to this event, I thought, cool, I'll get to see John Bell and Alison Byrne Fields of Ogilvy's 360 Group, go to Greece, and talk incessantly about women and blogging. What I didn't expect was that I would have one of those coming-home experiences that helped remind me why I got involved with a bunch of geeks in the first place.

Stream was not your typical prove-that-we-get-the-new-media-thing-event, but more the decent-looking love child of well-meaning, progressive marketers and devout geeks. Throw in a few European Club Med employees who ensured you were always so very happeee and it was like attending summer camp with an open bar. I had fun, I evangelized, and I learned a lot.

Yossi Vardi hosts an event like Stream in his native Israel, and he brought the quirky, holistic approach to this event. There was a gadgethon one night, which--truth be told--I wondered if anyone would participate in. Shame on me, thinking that no one would shlep gadgets with them half-way around the world. The Israelis are fairly close to Greece geographically and brought robots, instruments, and a fun sense of humor. Dan Dubno, former tech virtuoso at CBS, brought more hardware than you'd see at a Best Buy. A European's contribution of an automated, er, male sexual enhancer met with disapproval from the oddly knowledgeable digital evangelist Peter Hirshberg: "That was around, like, five years ago," he said.

This was a crowd to be reckoned with. It seemed everyone was up to something. I met an entrepreneur named Rob Stokes who moved from Cape Town to London to grow his marketing company, Quirk eMarketing, nine years ago. Caroline Slootweg, director of digital marketing for Unilever, who has worked in mulitple countries and an excitement for conversational marketing that is refreshing. A venture capitalist named William Bao Bean who left Silicon Valley in 2002 and now heads up a fund in China. A bunch of slackers, all of them.

Yossi reminded everyone to leave their business titles at the door. Of course, that's hard to do when we're all there for business, but I found it quite easy to talk shop, then make myself and Peter Friedman s'mores, negotiate having a 1 a.m. burrito from chief strategist and temporary chef Kurt David Kratchman, and dance with Mike Lundgren from VML and Michele Azar at Best Buy until 4am. These people have kids and more energy than me; I had no excuse to let them down.

I learned from Bob Gilbreath that we can market with meaning (actually I knew that already from BlogHer, but now I have a framework by which to describe what we do).

I learned that Andrew Keen isn't the devil--he just played one on The Colbert Report. His session on how Web 2.0 is destroying traditional media was interesting indeed, albeit, limited. I agree, there's shlock everywhere, but this ain't limited to social media. WE didn't start the obsession with Britney or Paris, we only got there after the fact. We don't replace, or threaten, traditional media, we hold it accountable, and we get into those hard-to-reach places where marketers are trying to have substantial conversations.

I learned from Katharina that being a woman in digital media editorial is still a rough thing. Apparently some people still have trouble accepting that women are able to do things like read, write, and innovate. Her stories of the sexual insults she received when she became the internet editor for the WAZ Mediengruppe is all-too-similar to the madness Kathy Sierra experienced earlier this year.

Most important, I learned that I can live with minimal bandwidth. Not very long, mind you, but a couple of days before I starve from Internet deprivation.

Entrepreneurial Sin #8: Becoming a Repurposer

Three years ago, when I started this blog, I found time each weekend to sit in a cafe and read. I always brought a variety of books and magazines and would alternate from article to chapter, sometimes taking notes. It seemed like an arduous process, but it was my patented way of extracting ideas that were dormant but very much alive. Creative thought can often hibernate like a bear in the winter. This material that I read--be it a business book or a woman's magazine--was like a sizzling steak laid under my nose. It woke me up and let me stretch my muscles. Often the blog posts that resulted bore no resemblance to the copy that inspired it. The point was not to riff off of these books and articles, but to allow them to trigger something totally unique.

I get bored with blog content that simply riffs off of other content, even though there are content providers who do very well with this tactic. Let's be realistic: we need interpreters and evaluators of original content, but I didn't begin blogging with an eye toward keywords to embed, or A-List bloggers to emulate, in my content; I did it to extract ideas that I suspected I had, but that I hadn't given a chance to manifest. Hopefully, some of these ideas would be needed.

I bring this up for several reasons, one which is purely observational and the other personal (read: entrepreneurial): It would make sense that in its adolescence the Blogosphere has begun to resemble the landscape of its predecessor, traditional media. You have your "premium" original content providers, your riffers and referrers to original content which provide us with the benefit of aggregated premium content, and your equivalent of syndicators, or "repurposers" of content. And in the process of this maturation, or de-maturation depending on how you look at it, the proportion of original to repurposed content decreases. In technical terms, more of the same shlock gets put out there. Much of this shlock was once gold, but as a concept gets re-generated over and over, it loses its luster. I can watch the same episodes of Seinfeld or The Sopranos only so many times. I can read only so many takes of the same meme before it fizzles.

Talking about blog technique with Britt Bravo the other day, we both confessed that we didn't actually practice what we preached when it came to writing down ideas for future blogging. It seems that whenever I do this I've lost interest by the time I sit down to write. The effect is a lack of consistent coverage of current or important events, but the benefit of content that has current relevance to me.

This concept of original vs. repurposed content resonates with me on a personal level because it applies to my entrepreneurial endeavors. If BlogHer is a unique concept, it must continue to be a "premium" content, or concept, provider--we can't get too absorbed in the logistics of what we are doing, or the need to monetize it, that we lose sight of the original generator of ideas that inspired it. We grew organically from women's original voices and from a process of continual feedback with the women's blogging community, and this piece must be retained, above all else, or we lose our value proposition.   It's something the founders are always cognizant of--the need to keep our pilot light on, at all costs, despite the competing demands of growing a business.

Yet its easy to fall into the trap of not changing it up, of not exploring for new inspiration. For one thing repurposing saves time. On an efficiency level it makes sense to regurgitate the same ideas, but do this too much and you risk innovation--your edge. You can only widgetize ideas so much before we all start spewing the same headlines.

I had ample time to ponder this on a trip I took this week to Israel, to speak at the The Globes Internet & Communications Conference in Tel Aviv. Some people think it's borderline insane to fly 36 hours for a 1.5-hour engagement. And with all that I needed to handle back at home after my last trip, I couldn't stay for more than 24 hours. But I honor my commitments and frankly was excited to see how concepts that were becoming old hat in my mind would resonate with new audiences. An interesting side effect from any of these engagements is that I end up coming away smarter, having recognized a new position in the world. I found the Israelis to be incredibly interested in how women are making their mark online, and I found myself rather captivated by the entrepreneurs I spoke with, who are inventing Web 2.0 applications that take into account user psychology as much as market demand. I had many "why didn't I think of that?" moments.

I must confess I was not relishing the idea of traveling so far in such a short timeline. For one thing I had serious work to do, email to manage, meetings that were being held off, and...well... stuff, just a lot of stuff. And yet, somewhere in the 15th hour of my 36-hour journey I started to see the underlying purpose of my visit. There in the back pocket of the seat in front of me, where I'd stuffed a novel I'd had for two years before cracking it open, and months-worth of Business 2.0s, now with articles ripped from the bindings, and a used notebook, I saw something that made sense. In this situation of prolonged confinement, I was being brought back to life.