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I'm taking the madness abroad: I'm speaking at the Women Business Blogging Conference in the UK

One of the questions I'm often asked regarding BlogHerCon is "Why a conference for women?" And I remind them, the event is for men, too. But we launched BlogHer in 2005 to provide a place for women where they could address their specific uses of social media. Sure, there are tech heads and gurus in our midst whom you'd see at the other blogging conferences, but there are also Mombloggers, personal diarists, knitting bloggers, food bloggers, you name it. And they want an event that connects them to others in their communities and provides discussion on their specific slice of the internet. Our approach to building community and addressing the many reasons why we blog is equally valuable to both men and to women, but it sprang from a need to incorporate the needs of women bloggers.

You might wonder, why do women need a business blogging conference? We showed at BlogHer Business that even in a field like business, where (for the purposes of this argument) men and women hold equal sway, there is something unique about how women approach the subject. By most reports BlogHer Business was as collaborative and practical as business conferences come. Men and women alike shared best practices, whether formally in sessions, or by scrawling a new tool on the back of a napkin. But it was a women's conference because it fully leveraged women's innate ability to share by example and through storytelling. And it offered up knowledgeable speakers who were women.

The success of BlogHer Business emphasizes the need I see for the Women Business Blogging Conference in the UK on June 8. Conference founder Sue Thomas, Professor of New Media, Faculty of Humanities, De Montfort University, has pulled together an event in conjunction with her department NLab (Narrative Laboratory for the Creative Industries) that brings much of what we've established with BlogHer to European academics, non-profits, marketers, and small business owners.

Still Alive! Just back from BlogHer Business

Just got back from the marathon business trip that culminated in an absolutely awesome inaugural BlogHer Business Conference. I didn't know what to expect. Of course, we would have awesome speakers, but would we still be able to pull off the energy that is normally experienced at the summer BlogHer Conference (which I've dubbed, BlogHer Blowout)?

There's something about getting a bunch of women bloggers together, whether they are Mommy bloggers, business bloggers, or, as I learned, companies seeking to learn more about social media. Every woman (and man) that I met at BlogHer Business oozed curiosity. There was a generosity of spirit--attendees who offered up their best practices--and humility. Veterans mixed it up with the newbies. Publishers chit-chatted with consultants. The business bloggers ate Twizzlers with the agency execs. Media behemoths pow-wowed with tech giants. And there were shoulder rubs to boot. One big business love-in, without singing Kumbaya.

THIS is why I do this.

BlogHer Business conferences

Think negotiating for more money is petty? Hope you like your job

My latest on BlogHer. Yep, women get paid less, but we also ask for less.

The Conversion from East Coast Neurotic to West Coast Empath Part II: The Shift in Media

Just over a week ago, Elisa and I were in New York for some meetings. I'd been wanting to see the Hearst Corporation's new headquarters, which is known for being one of the only truly green structures in New York, and this week I'd get my chance. Back when I lived in New York nobody really gave a Swirl lightbulb about green buildings. We were still feeling rather self-satisfied with the fact that we recycled our trash.

The building was magnificent; our host explained that the water that coasted down the diagonal walls in the main lobby was recycled rain collected from the roof; all of the glimmering steel was recycled as well.

The first floors of the building were open and unsegmented. The cafeteria was wall-less and consisted of simple, modular counters decorated with festive presentations of stuffed mini-pumpkins and steaming food. I was disappointed; I'd just eaten a mediocre, unsubsidized lunch before arriving and couldn't partake in the sushi bar.

As I sat down, noticing a media celebrity lunching at the table behind us, a familiar feeling crept over me, one not totally pleasant or unpleasant, just familiar. I remembered my days working in New York, a smartly dressed young editor with overextended credit, working in an impressive building like this and returning to my rent-controlled apartment, where I'd eat a yogurt or maybe half a can of soup for dinner. At work in Mid-town, I went to fancy holiday parties and ate meals at expensive restaurants that I could charge to my corporate account, then I took the subway back to my shared walkup in Brooklyn. The diametric shift in quality of life that I experienced daily in New York was one that I didn't have the stomach for anymore. For this trip I'd flown economy and slept on a friend's couch to save on travel expenses, but this time the company was my own venture. My life matched my work.

BlogHer Presents...World Domination via Collaboration

I. Can. Not. Wait. I get to moderate (or be a fat fly on the wall) while folks like Caterina Fake, Jenna Woodul, Jessica Hardwick, and my Business Partner/Offline Gal Pal Lisa Stone shoot the shinola about community today at the Web 2.0 Conference.

A description of our panel:

BlogHer Presents...World Domination via Collaboration
Jory Des Jardins, Co-founder, BlogHer LLC
Caterina Fake, Co-founder, Flickr
Jessica Hardwick, Founder and CEO, SwapThing.com
Lisa Stone, Co-founder, BlogHer
Jenna Woodul, Executive Vice President and Chief Community Officer, LiveWorld

Many companies focus on building community to “leverage” it, skipping a crucial step: Collaborating with users to build a product or experience that dominates the market because it's great. It is possible to strike that balance: Building community, maintaining credibility, meeting organizational objectives. Meet company leaders whose models are steeped in user collaboration.

Now, some of you might think, I care why? Let me be clear: In Web 1.0. days "Community", (read a loyal audience) was a nice-to-have. It meant eyeballs; populated forums meant page views. Today, however, community is a business model in itself. If you don't give it proper care and feeding you might as well go into print publishing and wonder why your circ numbers are falling. Community is a living, breathing, organism, and it matters. Community supplies traffic, content, word-of-mouth advocacy, a low-cost viral marketing channel, and the most sought-after target audiences of key influencers.

And these women know how to make it blossom.

In our panel we'll explore effective, organic community building that impacts the bottom line from people who have and are building businesses based on strong communities. Some themes I intend to cover:

• The unspoken “rules” of community
• How to properly nourish and build community
• How to monetize community while maintaining it
• How to balance pleasing the community with the realities of running a business
• How to enact change within a community
• How to protect the community against trolls, spammers
• How to communicate with communities
• How to establish leadership structures
• How can advertisers/sponsors influence the influencers?

If you are going to be at Web 2.0., stop in! Say hello.

Web 2.0 Conference Caterina Fake Jessica Hardwick Lisa Stone Jenna Woodul Jory Des Jardins BlogHer collaboration

I'm Speaking at Blog Business Summit--Say Hello

Elisa Camahort and I are heading up to Seattle this week to speak, meet-up, and pretend we're blogging sessions but really responding to email at Blog Business Summit (Fine, that last one refers to me). Fact is, I never blog AT a conference; the thoughts need to cook.

I'm speaking on a panel about small business with Andru Edwards and Kevin O'Keefe. And I offer up this request for anyone who is attending the session: Grill Us! Get your money's worth. Make us work for you. We're going to try to give the skinny on small business blogging from several points of view, not just new media. If you've got a bricks and mortar business that you want to promote through blogging, or if you are a consultant who wants to build a profile and practice, or if you are building your own media empire post by post, tell us what you want to know.

The other panel I'm on is with betrothed (and about-to-be-betrothed) bloggers Maryam and Robert Scoble, and Ponzi and Chris Pirillo--and no, it's not about blogging your nuptials or how to humilate the ones you love. These two couples embody a situation that many business blogging personalities face, where many in their audience know just as much about their personal as professional lives. Is this a good thing?

I preach until I'm blue in the face the need to be authentic on your blog, especially on a business blog, so I'm inclined to say yes. Though there's much to be said for creating boundaries. You have to consider the folks that come to your blog to get business information, or who come through Google. It can be kind of off-putting coming to a blog where all you experience is not being in on the joke--like you are supposed to know the people being mentioned. I believe that good business bloggers have to be adept at writing for two audiences: one that wants to relate to you in order to take in your information, and one that just wants the facts.

Then there are issues of disclosure, not just legal or business details, but personal. I've had a few instances myself where I might have, er, written about something before getting a good gut check of what H-band would think. Surprisingly H-band was OK with it, but my audience was like, Oooooh TMI, Jory T.M. freaking I.

I liken this to the Naked panels I've moderated at BlogHer, but with the Business Blogger in mind. How do you walk the line of being trusted by customers but then having to pull back if you disagree with your employer or your client? How do you deal with the elephants in the room (or office) without destroying confidentiality, but also without seeming like a corporate drone?

The ideal example of this Edelman situation happened last week, when Edelman SVP and Uberblogger Steve Rubel FINALLY wrote about the Wal-Mart blog fiasco. As an employee of the firm in question, he had to tow the company line and wait until a decision was reached by his communications department on how to handle the affair. Yet, his readers, who have come to expect him to hold up PR firms/corporate marketing departments to a magnifying lens, expected an immediate explanation.

I experience this with BlogHer: now that I help run a company, I cannot be as forthcoming about personal details that are associated with the business. My business has become the business of my partners, other bloggers, and sponsors of BlogHer. How do you manage all loyalties? Come to the panel to see how these bloggers weigh in.

And, if you are in Seattle, do your damnedest to say hi to me at the meet-up BlogHer is holding at the Blog Business Summit on Thursday Oct 26. You don't have to be a conference attendee to get in--though if you think you might want to go to BBS, definitely mention you're coming through BlogHer to get the special rate. Deets for the meetup and conference discount are here.

Blog Business Summit Elisa Camahort Andru Edwards Kevin O'Keefe Maryam Scoble Robert Scoble Ponzi Chris Pirillo BlogHer Seattle Meetup

The Relationship Chronicles: One man's schwag is one woman's treasure

The morning after BlogHerCon ...

B-friend's entirely too on-it this morning. He's stacked all of the GM bags we collected and organized the loads of schwag we accumulated at the end of BlogHer.

"I just couldn't let it all go to waste," he said.

I know, I know, if every person on the planet could pick up just one piece of trash, oh how much cleaner our planet could be; but all I could think about was the other 300 or so items we'd left at the hotel. A lifetime re-gifting supply of Crabtree & Evelyn.

B-friend laid out all of the items in degrees of desirability. He'd put the Elexa T-shirts in the "New Rag" pile.

"DOOOOoooon't!"

"You have so many of these already."

"I can't believe YOU are choosing what stays and what goes!"

"We have to be realistic, Jory. We can't keep all of this."

"Fine, but the Baby T's stay!"

"Fine."

I throw the Elexa condoms into the Keep pile.

"Why are you doing that, Jory?"

"I'm curious."

"I told you--we have too much stuff!'

"OK, I get it, we can keep the leather-bound CD cases, the corkscrews and the Yahoo! notebooks, but that's it, huh?"

"Those I can use for road trips."

"Fine. But gimme the Brandimensions highlighter."

(Exasperated sigh) "Fine ... hey, what are you doing! Why are you keeping all of that stuff over there!"

"These are gift piles. The bibs and the PBS Parents calendar go to Julie (my sister and mother of a four-month-old), I know Mom wants a tote. And they both get Crabtree & Evelyn."

"Jory! Didn't we just say we have to whittle this down?" He tossed the empty GM bags into the trash.

"DOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOooooon't!"

"No, Jory. We have to throw stuff out."

"We NEED those!

"For what?"

"Stuff ... lunches."

"I don't need them. And you work from home--you don't pack lunches. They go in recycling .... What are these, Bookmarks from Blurb? Throw these out."

"DOOOOOoooooOOOOOooooon't!"

blogher06 relationships

What does it mean, to "sell out"?

In the wake of the BlogHer conference a new question, not "Where are the women bloggers?" but "Shall we monetize?" I offer up my thoughts on BlogHer.org.

Conversations I had before, during, and after BlogHer '06

"I don't understand. Why can't it be 'clits down'?"
--B-friend, being his usual literal self, seeing me wearing a pin that Susie Bright had handed to me that said, "Clits Up."

"It's weird. I don't know all these people."
--Robert Scoble, when he arrived at BlogHer's appreciation soiree for event speakers, Website contributing editors, Ad Network members, volunteers and our Advisory Board. He was there with his wife, Maryam, who was on the "Next Level Naked" panel.

"I have to admit, I'm a little scared being here. It's a bit ... emasculating."
--A male podcaster giving BlogHer a little too much credit, interviewing me onsite

"Maryam, do you know where we're going?"
--Me, in the passenger seat, while test-driving a Saturn Sky roadster with Maryam Scoble from the San Jose Hyatt and noticing we were getting surprisingly close to San Francisco

"Is that, like, a Saturn? You guys look great!"
--Random dude in a Honda, who pulled up beside me and Maryam in a moment GM couldn't have scripted better it was so gushing. I looked behind me to see if our sponsors had somehow been behind it, but Maryam had wandered so far away from the hotel that it wouldn't have been possible

"And over there is Jory Des Jardins--she's got the short, dark, big hair..."
--Chris Nolan, moderator of the closing keynote "Creating Your Platform", letting people know to flag me down--the woman holding the microphone and who pomaded the f*%& out of her hair to keep it from frizzing--if they had questions for the panelists

"Oh my God you're so cute and thin in person ... and you're really cute too!"
--a guilt-ridden BlogHer attendee, gushing upon seeing Amanda Congdon, and then noticing that I was standing next to her

"Did you get a pastie?"
--BlogHer attendee, raving to a friend about the schwag she discovered in the exhibitor pavilion

"One point? That's impossible! This has to be, like, 100 points!"
--Me, geeking out over how good a WeightWatchers snack can be. This was my lunch on Day 2, as I had been running all over the freaking place and blew off my mantra for this year's event: "Don't forget to eat." The WeightWatchers Online table became my buffet

"So niiiiize to meet you."
--Arianna Huffington, upon being introduced

"Are you going to let a MAN do that at your own conference!"
--B-friend, pissed because Salim Ismael cut into the booze line during the Yahoo! Cocktail party

"Don't think I'm weird or anything like that. Arianna Huffington is coming out and we're going to do an interview."
--KRON's Brian Shields, mistakenly perceiving any judgements I might have about his proximity to the women's restroom.

"I think we need a serious break, OK? So let's regroup, then, on Monday."
--My BlogHer co-Founder Lisa Stone, as exhausted as I was, at the Day 2 evening cocktail party, Saturday night

"I'm thinking next year we might want to get an event planner."
--My other BlogHer co-Founder Elisa Camahort, having difficulty standing, at the same party

"So I heard."
--My sister, Julie, as I was telling her about the conference. Apparently I'd unwittingly dialed her on my cell phone during the conference, and she listened to me giving people directions to the session rooms for 10 minutes

"I'm thinking about it."
--My mother, a blogger with travel issues, when encouraged to attend BlogHer '07, which will be in Chicago next summer--20 minutes from her house

BlogHer06

Blogging is Good...Now What?: Disseminating the conversations from Bloggercon IV

I spent a good portion of my weekend at Bloggercon IV, a conference, as I've tried to explain to people who haven't been, for "users".

USERS is a strange term, almost clinical. A person who doesn't work in tech might think it refers to drug addicts. I would have to clarify, of a sort, yes. A very literal cynic might define Users as opportunistic ingrates. I assure you, this doesn't apply. At Bloggercon USERS are like inner children--we each have one, but we don't always honor them.

Our lives have been somehow changed by blog technology, getting us into the USER club, but we get intimidated by those who are more tech savvy and assume that we are supposed to remember thousands of Username and Password IDs. USERS often forget their status as a reason why technologists bother to build cool shit. And Bloggercon Founder Dave Winer thinks that this is blasphemy. Bloggercon helps us remember that we are the real bad asses: WE buy the iPods and Vaios, not just the crowd who puts Technorati stickers on their laptops. Not just the folks who only speak IM. Not just the people who think that playing with code on a Friday night is fun. 

Bloggercon approaches blogging from the perpective of the people who USE it, not those who DEVELOP it. It looks at the areas where blogging is making a difference (politics), and how its evolving (vlogging, standards), and where it needs to go (diversity, values). Wow--sounds like consumer heaven, like the minute you walk in the door you are showered with free trials and automatic entry to a Disney World giveaway. But not quite. There are no sponsors (just donors) to Bloggercon, and hence no schwag, just a lot of memories on Flickr of the same 70 people in a sparse, yellow-lit room. People that you got to know fairly well because you sat with them for hours, a few who got to know you because they inadvertently walked in on you while your ass was hanging over the toilet in one of the two Unisex johns. (Scott--no hard feelings; I should have locked the door.)

Regardless of how we came to this technology conference, this no-frills forum allowed us to leave much more aware of the many kinds of geekiness that exists, from inherent geekiness, to media geekiness, to borderline personality geekiness. We all belong.