Day One Schedule and Call for Speakers

I am thrilled to unveil our BlogHer Conference '06 schedule for Friday July 28th, Day One of the Conference.

First a word on Day One's purpose:

Day One is about the 'education' part of the BlogHer mission to create an opportunity for all kinds of women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community. After last year's conference we received a lot of valuable feedback, and we got some very strong feedback that you wanted more and deeper technology discussions...and hands-on learning. That's Day One.

The Day One Keynote:

Day One Keynote is a conversation with two great technology leaders. BlogHer Marnie Webb will engage Caterina Fake (founder of Flickr and currently with Yahoo!) and Meg Hourihan (founder of Pyra, which became Blogger) in a conversation with the audience about "What's Next?" We'll talk about what's next in tech (and hopefully hear whether they think "Web 2.0" is hype? Or hip?) We'll also talk about what's next after you grab the brass ring...how do you find your next challenge? In the BlogHer spirit we will be collecting questions and comments beforehand and during the session, so this will be a Keynote Conversation, not a coupla Keynote speeches.

Day One Logistics:

First: when we get our online registration site up you will note that Day One and Day Two will be available as separate days or as a two-day conference. So, never fear, if there are those of you who don't want to take a Friday off to get geeky all day long, but can't wait to show up on Saturday, you will be able to.

Second: every session will be focused on learning how, and doing hands-on. For some sessions (e.g. audio, video, photography) we will publish an equipment/software list beforehand. We will do a series of repeated workshops, so people get an opportunity to attend as many of the sessions as possible. We will have not just a primary instructor, but additional mentors available, so people can get help during the hands-on portions of a session.

Call for Speakers: Deadline is 02/15/06:

You'll note that only a handful of these sessions have pre-assigned instructors. We are in talks with other folks, but mostly the opportunity is wide open. If you are interested in speaking, or want to recommend a speaker, for a particular session, please contact me ASAP. Remember these sessions will be hands on. Every attendee should leave a workshop feeling they did something with their own two hands.

The deadline for submission will be 02/15/06. We will be ready to announce the full schedule in time for BlogHer's descent on Austin for SXSWi.

What about Day Two?

Day Two is still percolating and its draft will be published soon. Day Two will have both BlogHer-defined programming and Room of Your Own opportunities, just like last year. And there will be a call for speakers and panel submissions for Day Two as well. Stay tuned.

What about Conference registration:

It's coming. Expect our new flexible conference registration site to be up within about one week.

OK, let me have it: your feedback, your speaker ideas, your wish list for what you would want to get out of the sessions that will be part of BlogHer Day One.

Comments

[Denise]

I haven't had time to process but it looks like a good first day. I think I like it.

[amy]

Will you add this newbie blogger to the blogroll? I'm looking forward to learning a whole lot at the conference.

[Elisa Camahort]

Done. Welcome Amy.

[Jenny]

Yay! Amy's coming! I'm a huge fan of mamazine.

[badgerbag]

That sounds so great, especially the hands-on stuff. I would like to start messing around with podcasting - it would be great at my next poetry/translation conference in the fall.

[minnie]

day one looks cool. will there be any art panels or discussions of art blogging on other days?

[Elisa Camahort]

Minnie: I would suggest you email me and give me an idea of what such a panel would look like: Propose a title, description and even bloggers that you think need to be involved. I am not familiar with this particular segment of the blogosphere, so I could use your guidance.

In addition to opportunities to do this as a Room of Your Own session on Day Two, we will also have a morning Birds of a Feather session on Day Two, so there is another chance there to get art bloggers together.

Thanks for the suggestion. Look forward to hearing more from you.

[Beverly Trayner]

The day looks great, especially the hands on stuff. I'd also love to see some stuff on the issue of different languages. For example there are a bunch of ways people are keeping blogs in two languages and a corresponding bunch of social/technical/political issues behind each one.

The other is the whole issue of tagging. Tagging has huge implications for people who are writing in languages other than English - to build up shared resources and conversations about all new technologies and practices in languages other than English.

[shaunna]

this looks great - hopefully registration will not go up next tuesday. i'll be in the air most of the day, and i don't want to miss it.