OOPS - if you're looking for the BlogHer '06 Conference site, you've come to the wrong place! (This is the historical record of our 2005 conference.)
To find out more about BlogHer and our 2006 conference, join us here: http://blogher.org.
OOPS - if you're looking for the BlogHer '06 Conference site, you've come to the wrong place! (This is the historical record of our 2005 conference.)
To find out more about BlogHer and our 2006 conference, join us here: http://blogher.org.
Posted by Lisa Stone on June 19, 2006 at 08:58 PM in BlogHer Audio, BlogHer MeetUps, BlogHer News, Community, Conference details, Humor, Session Discussions, Sponsors, To-Do Lists | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As part of the Beta launch, we will be changing some domain and server settings. Some of these will be instantaneous. Some will happen over the next 24 hours.
Until all domain settings are changed, you might experience difficulty in accessing and/or using the site here. It takes time for domain registration DNS settings to propagate through the worldwide web -- meaning your ISP might not "see" the new BlogHer.org settings right away. Please be patient. Everything will come back together rather quickly.
The end result is that by sometime Monday -- but most likely sometime today -- you should be able to reach a new site by typing blogher.org into your browser.
Posted by Lisa Stone on January 29, 2006 at 07:54 PM in BlogHer News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1)
OK, everybody, in honor of BlogHer being on the same weekend as the Grand Prix race, start your engines!!
BlogHer Registration is live!
You will notice several differences between this year and last year:
-We are a two-day conference, and we are allowing people to register for individual days or both days, as they so choose. Remember, Day One is techie and hands on. Day Two is culture, conversation and community...and will be the Day that supports Room of Your Own sessions.
-We are allowing people to buy evening cocktail party attendance separately. So if you only want to attend one day's worth of sessions, but want to party both nights, you can feel free. Or if you want to bring your significant other to the evening events, you can buy them tickets to just the cocktail parties.
Yes, there are going to be caps on attendance. I will certainly try to give people more heads up than last year! Right now we are estimating that Day One will be about the same size as last year's conference, and that Day Two could be up to double in size.
Stay tuned for an update on the hotel room situation.
Consider the flag to have dropped...and the start gun to have fired.
UPDATED: The Two-Day Student Pass option is now publicly visible. Thanks to danah for her sharp eyes.
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 23, 2006 at 11:28 AM in Conference details | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack (8)
As some of you have noted here, the online registration form for the Hyatt San Jose was no longer giving the $75 rate.
I spoke with the hotel this morning, and the truth is that you had blown through our initial commitment for room nights on Thursday night! After continued negotiation with the hotel, we have secured more rooms. So, here's what is still available, on a first-come, first-served basis:
We secured 75 more rooms for Thursday and Saturday nights. Friday night has even more nights available (160.)
There are only a handful of $75 rooms left on the outlying days (Tues./Wed./Sunday./Mon.)
When it comes to Thursday and Friday nights we should be able to increase the number of rooms again at the current rate, if needed. But be forewarned that, given the Grand Prix and other conventions in San Jose that weekend, the hotel cannot commit to any more $75 rooms for Saturday evening. They do expect to be sold out all weekend. (And their regular rate will likely rise to over $200 as we get closer to July.)
One more thing to bear in mind: their online group booking site seems to have an inconvenient limitation. Once one night you're requesting is sold out at the group rate, it kicks the whole reservation request out of the group rate. Some of you have already noticed this.
Apparently the phone operators can handle this better than the online site can. So, if you have a problem with not seeing the group rate, feel free to contact me to let me know, but you might also want to call the group rate reservation 800-number to get your reservation done: 1 800 633 7313
Last thing: I think at this point it is wise for us to start checking out room block availability at the other nearby hotels. Maria and I will work on finding a couple of other options within half a mile of the Hyatt. If we start to blow through these rooms at the Hyatt, we will post alternatives.
Thanks everyone. I can't tell you how pleased we are that even before registration went live we are seeing so many of you making your hotel reservations. We are obviously going to rock this joint!
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 23, 2006 at 09:31 AM in Conference details | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
It's official: In one week, BlogHer is beta-launching a new site -- complete with tagline and brilliant contributing editors. Who are the editors, you may wonder? What will the new site mean for me? In one week--perhaps sooner--I'll update this blog with more information about:
- Your new opportunities to use the network to promote your ideas and writing;
- Who the editors are, what they're working on and how you can get involved;
- More about the Drupal deity who's coding her fingers numb on the site;
Let's meet-up Monday, Jan. 30, to toast it together (see details below). Please mark your calendars: I will join as many of you as I can drag out next Monday night to hoist a glass - real or virtual - to this hard work.
Where: The Thirsty Bear (see address, map and directions in the extended post)
When: 7 p.m., Monday, Jan. 30, San Francisco. As the hostess for BlogHer
Who: All BlogHers and our friends
Continue reading "BlogHer Beta Site Launch: 7 days and counting..." »
Posted by Lisa Stone on January 23, 2006 at 06:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBack (7)
I spoke with Hugh from SXSW on Monday night, and he told me they have 110 women speakers at SXSW Interactive this year.
w00t, if I may be so undeservedly geeky.
(Now, yes, I did ask "out of how many", and it's out of about 300, but still...gotta give 'em some props.)
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 20, 2006 at 06:59 PM in Community | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
After some participants had to withdraw somewhat last minute, Hugh from SXSW Interactive asked BlogHer if we would like to help him rescue a panel that seemed right up our alley.
Given that the panel is entitled "Increasing Women's Visibility Online: Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?", how could we refuse!? We are excited about it because it is definitely going to be right up there with the other four panels BlogHer is co-producing...and featured some kick-ass women with a variety of viewpoints on the subject of women's visibility. Here are the deets:
BlogHer/SXSW Session #5: Increasing Women's Visibility on the Web: Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?
Sunday March 12th 11:30-12:30
Where are the women online? Stop asking "where are the women?" and think bigger: Why don't women have a public profile equal to their contributions? And whose fault is it? To answer this question, BlogHer has recruited women who perceive the issue in very different ways...and therefore propose very different solutions.
Join Ayse Enginer in conversation with Liz Henry, Tara Hunt, Virginia Debolt and Jan Kabili, and the 5th panelist: the BlogHer audience.
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 20, 2006 at 03:42 PM in Conference details, Session Discussions | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Adam from Darwinian Web makes an observation about "chick blogs":
Based on my referrer logs I've discovered a valuable lesson. If you link to female bloggers and say nice things about them, they link right back. Weird. Guys don't do that. When is the next Blogher?
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 20, 2006 at 07:30 AM in Community, Humor | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
BlogHers say the darndest things. (Am I dating myself with that reference...anyone remember that show. Anyone?)
Today I found this post from sarah marinara:
I just promised JP that I wouldn’t make her go to our 10 year high school reunion if we went to Blogher instead. We’ll see if that works out.
sarah marinara, who calls her blog the "ramblings of your average half mexican, half honkey mormon chick with an attitude and a perscription for Paxil" is so added to our BlogHerRoll :)
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 18, 2006 at 04:40 PM in Community, Humor | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
It was suggested to me that I could be a little more clear with my description of how speaker submissions will work. So here is a more detailed description:
Day One is all about technical training and hands-on learning. We have determined the schedule, but we need instructors. I am looking for people to submit themselves or others as qualified to lead any of the sessions currently without named instructors. You could submit your resume, your applicable site URLs, other speaking experience or teaching experience...whatever you think will make the case that you should lead a session. If you do not want to be an instructor, but see a session where you'd like to be a floating mentor, helping people hands-on, particularly in languages other than English, you can let me know that too.
Day Two, which is yet to be published, is going to be more about the community, the conversation and the culture of blogging. There will be two kinds of sessions when released: those like Day One that are already defined, but need speakers, and probably 6 open sessions slots for what we call "Room of Your Own" topics...sessions that BlogHer the organization will not define, but are eager to let BlogHers in the community define for us.
When Day Two is published you can either, again, propose yourself as a speaker for a specific session, or if you think we're missing the boat by not having a session on _______ (fill in the blank) you can volunteer to organize one in a Room of Your Own track.
Last year some of the Room of Your Own sessions were among the most well-attended and buzz-worthy sessions the whole day...leaving some of the planning to you truly makes this the "conference the community built" and embodies the spirit of Do-ocracy that BlogHer embraces.
Feel free to contact me directly if you still have questions, or with your submissions.
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 18, 2006 at 12:53 PM in Conference details | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
When Danny Bonaduce made his couple's therapy sessions the stuff of series television I thought he was a a real attention whore, so starved for any form of notoriety he'd succumb to the drinker's equivalent of rubbing alcohol to fill his chronic need for publicity.
Yet when Love Coach Rinatta Paries told me about her blogging experiment with her client, Jodi, I could only think, how brave. Jodi has agreed to open her relationship coaching sessions to the Blogosphere, while she works on finding, and maintaining a relationship with, the man of her dreams.
Says Paries:
"Jodi will be getting complimentary coaching from me in exchange for her willingness and openness to share herself on my blog and hers. My biggest reason for coaching her publicly is so that the world, and you, can see what love coaching with me is like and how much love coaching with me can benefit your love life."
I met Rinatta Paries when I worked with writers at ThirdAge to develop the site's blog. She had never blogged before, but she was willing to learn and always looking for ways to enhance her content. Now she hosts her own blog in addition to contributing to ThirdAge.
I appreciate Paries's full-blown honesty about why she agreed to coach Jodi publicly:
"To be honest, I hope that you will find this experiment, and my coaching, so intriguing, appealing and powerful that you will be uncontrollably compelled to hire me as your coach."
But why had Jodi agreed to do this publicly? Because it's free? Maybe. Perhaps she is willing to allow others to learn from her experiences. I can only wonder what the man in this equation will think of all this; will he even find out? Perhaps he's not a blogger. Perhaps he's a dancer, or a sandbagger, and doesn't spend much time on a computer.
In any event, I'm sure single women--and men--will learn from these sessions. Perhaps that's why I like this better than Breaking Bonaduce: There's a shared outcome, something useful to be gained by being made privy to the conversation other than mouth-dropping disbelief that child actors can be so pathetic.
Click here for all the deets. Also note that, in addition to the email coaching, Rinatta's and Jodi's phone sessions will be podcast. BALLSY!
Posted by Jory Des Jardins on January 17, 2006 at 10:01 AM in Community | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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.
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 16, 2006 at 08:32 AM in BlogHer News, Conference details, Session Discussions | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (1)
Thanks to BlogHer Julie Meloni for writing a book for beginning bloggers and using BlogHer as a term for demonstrating tagged search! We haven't had this much accidental publicity than when our logo doyenne was caught having drinks at Chasen's with AOL's Instant Messenger dude.
But seriously, folks: In our attempts to infuse the blogging habit into all of our loved ones, we have teamed up with Julie to offer her book: Blogging in a Snap to the first five people who leave a comment here requesting a copy. Request it for your mother, your kids, yourself--we don't care. But because we are nosy, we would like you to tell us why you'd like a copy.
If you want to review the table of contents of Julie's book, Click Here.
If you want to read more about this project, Click Here.
Note: This book is written for Blogger software users.
Posted by Jory Des Jardins on January 13, 2006 at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (1)
As promised the Hyatt San Jose has created a custom online site for BlogHers to reserve their hotel rooms. At that fabulous $75/night rate. The rate is available for the nights of 7/25/06 - 08/01/06 (vacation anyone?) And just so you know, they were awesome to offer us the special rate for all of those nights, while putting us on the hook for a minimum number of rooms reserved for one night only, the 28th. I know some of you have already reserved via the Hyatt phone line, but for those of you like me who prefer transacting all business online, you are now good to go.
UPDATED: Thanks Denise for calling our attention to the problem with the site, and thanks to Jenny for adding more info. Here's the dealio:
The Hyatt has to put some cap in their system as to how many rooms are sold at the special rate. That cap for the Friday night is 200 rooms. But they had put a really small cap in for every other night (like 5 rooms!)
And since they're not putting us on the hook for a minimum number of rooms for any other night, they're not going to just make the cap 200 rooms per night. (The Grand Prix is again in town on the same weekend, so they're pretty confident they can sell out the hotel at a much higher rate.)
So, right now we have negotiated for them to set aside the following number of rooms at $75 per night:
Tuesday July 25th/Wednesday July 26th: 10 rooms
Thursday July 27th: 25 rooms
Friday July 28th: 200 rooms
Saturday July 29th: 50 rooms
Sunday July 30th/Monday July 31st: 10 rooms
We'll start with that. The manager said if it looks like we're gonna rip right through those rooms we will go negotiate to get some more. At that point, we would probably have to make the commitment to cover a certain number of rooms on other nights, like we are for Friday night.
The site should be fixed to reflect these changes this morning.
SORRY for the confusion.
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 12, 2006 at 09:07 AM in Conference details | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBack (4)
...asks Nick Wilson over at Performancing. Ummm, they're, like, RIGHT HERE Nick! I had a lovely email exchange with him, and Nick mentioned that he would love to see more women contributors on his blog, "A place where those that want to make money from their blogs can learn, and perfect the art of making a living from weblogging."
Nick's over in the UK, but anyone attending the New Communications Forum in March will get the chance to meet him, as he'll be presenting with the likes of a few of us BlogHers. In the meantime, head on over to Performancing. You have to register before contributing.
Posted by Jory Des Jardins on January 11, 2006 at 10:52 AM in Community | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
This announcement from Britt Bravo at Tech Soup:
On January 10th, join Bay Area web innovators and social change agents for casual conversation + drinks at Net Tuesday!
Jason Schultz, Electric Frontier Foundation's staff attorney will talk about EFF's work defending our freedom in the digital world. Myles Weissleder, VP of Public Affairs from Meetup, will share some new ways Meetup is connecting folks.
Doors open at 6pm @ Varnish Art Gallery & Wine Bar, 77 Natoma St, San Francisco. Let us know you'll be there at Upcoming.org or Zvents.
Posted by Jory Des Jardins on January 09, 2006 at 10:40 AM in BlogHer News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's Yi-Tan conference call, in which I'll guest-interview Global Voices Online co-founders Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman one month after their second annual summit. These two are doing an amazing job of raising the profiles of women bloggers around the world.
I hope you'll join us (here's how) -- and I welcome your questions on the Yi-Tan wiki or via email. Here's more about Yi-Tan and more about Founder Jerry Michalski. And here's the teaser I posted on the wiki (see link above):
Listening to Global Voices
Yi-Tan Weekly Tech Call #66
Monday, January 9, 2006
- "Images from Palestine: School Book" posted by Haitham Sabbah
- "Egypt: The Massacre of the Sudanese Refugees" by Mostafa Hussein
- "No Longer a Bridge to Caracas" by Iria Puyosa
You won't find these stories by tuning in to the BBC or to CNN. In fact, if you search Google News, chances are that you won't even find a story in the mainstream media about the citizen journalism site that delivered these stories. Yet Global Voices Online is an award-winning news destination of choice for more than 300,000 international visitors a month. An IRC Chat will be available during the call, here.
Lisa Stone is looking forward to guest-hosting Monday's Yi-Tan call, in which we'll talk what's next for Global Voices Online. Called "the United Nations of blogging" by The Guardian, Global Voices reports on arguably more countries than the BBC, leveraging cheap, easy blogging technology to write about bloggers around the world. A little over a year since it launched, the site gets 300,000 visitors a month. In a conversation with co-founders Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman one month after their second annual summit, we'll ask:
See you Monday at 10:30am Pacific, 1:30pm Eastern time.
- What does it mean to be a "conversation community"? Are you an alternative world news agency? A stage for global activism? An international collection of diaries? Will your site always be English only? Take us down the road three to five years.
- How does this "conversation community" take its next steps, when so many bloggers live in countries that lack a free press? How about when many of these countries are at war?
- What do you want and/or need from the first world and why? Money? Attention? Feedback?
Posted by Lisa Stone on January 08, 2006 at 10:57 PM in BlogHer News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The London Geek Girl Meet-ups are up to rev. 3 now, and it sounds like they've got it going on.
Check out the dedicated site to find out the details and the "rules."
Basic info you need to know:
Date: 19th January 2006
Time: 7:30pm.
Venue: the Texas Embassy
Cost: £20 for food.
Have fun!
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 08, 2006 at 09:13 AM in BlogHer MeetUps | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The last time I brought up the conference diversity issue, in my rather broken-record fashion, I mentioned that we have to address both the supply and demand side of the equation:
"Bottom line: more and more of these women are calling for us to keep talking about it but to also start taking action.There's supply-side action...like listing yourself on the Speaker's Wiki and submitting your proposals.
And there's demand-side action...like not attending homogeneous events, or subscribing to homogeneous publications and blogging about why.
"
Well, here's a chance to take some supply-side action:
zdnet is looking for a few good tech and business bloggers, and yes, they'll pay.
Let's make sure they can't say "no women applied."
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 07, 2006 at 10:12 AM in Community | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Thanks go to BritBlogHer Improbulus from Consuming Experience for bringing this issue to our attention. (I, being a Mac user, never view things in IE and had no idea there even was an issue.)
Is your sidebar dropping to the bottom of the window in IE - yet it looks fine in Firebox or other browsers? Usually that's because IE can't properly handle something that's too wide for a particular section of your webpage...For example, say you display a blogroll in your blog sidebar (e.g. the BlogHerRoll in mine) by inserting some Javascript code in your template. Well, just one blog in the blogroll list which has too long a title for the width of the sidebar may make your entire sidebar drop to the bottom of the window, in Internet Explorer.
See her post for the details.
Thanks again!
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 06, 2006 at 05:23 PM in BlogHer News | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Today SXSW Interactive features BlogHer's participation at the conference in a nice little blurb.
SXSW stepped up to the plate specifically seeking proposals from BlogHers, and then really came through. Their schedule is jam-packed with sessions proposed and led by women.
Will we see you in Austin this March?
Posted by Elisa Camahort on January 06, 2006 at 01:34 PM in Conference details, Sponsors | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
Recent Comments