Why BlogHer isn't likely to be passe in my lifetime

It's day uno of "the most powerful thought leader and business development conference in Silicon Valley," as the Always On Stanford Information Summit bills itself.

And I have to thank Tony Perkins. Because on a day when a male journalist (whom I have long respected but just met) challenged BlogHer to me in a private conversation as "anachronistic," I find the best proof of BlogHer's value to women in the speaker list for Always On.

When you read this list of Always On speakers below, do you see the value in BlogHer, a conference devoted to the exposure, education and community of women bloggers--and its women-only speaker's list?

Presenters at the Always On Stanford Information Summit
How to read this list
Blue	= Speakers who are women
Yellow	= Moderators
Orange	= Speakers or moderators asked to join more than one panel
1	Alice Gast, VP, Research, MIT
2	Allen Morgan, partner, Mayfield
3	Barry J. Kramer, partner, Fenwick & West LLP
4	Bill Joy, partner, Kleiner Perkins
5	Bill Joy, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
6	Bill Watkins, CEO, Seagate
7	Bob Sutton, professor, Stanford University
8	Brian Bean, head of investment banking, Montgomery & Co.
9	Cyrill Eltschinger, CEO, I.T. UNITED (China)
10	Dan Burstein, managing partner, Millennium Technology Ventures
11	Dan Gillmor, founder Grassroots Media
12	Dave Sifry, CEO, Technorati
13	David Goldberg, Vice President & General Manager, Music, Yahoo!
14	David Kelley, IDEO’s founder and chairman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
15	David Ketsdever, CEO/SVB Alliant
16	Doc Searls, Senior Editor, Linux Journal
17	Dr. Jichang Guang, director, Outsourcing Center, Tsinghua Science Park
18	Elizabeth Economy, director, Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
19	George Gilder, CEO, Gilder Technology
20	George Gilder, editor, Gilder Technology Report
21	Gordon Davidson, Chairman, Fenwick and West
22	Gus Tai, general partner, Trinity Ventures
23	Janice Roberts, managing partner, Mayfield
24	Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author
25	Jerry Brown, Mayor of Oakland California, former Governor of California
26	Jim Plummer, Dean, School of Engineering, Stanford University
27	Joe Kraus, founder and CEO, JotSpot
28	Joe Schoendorf, partner, Accel Partners
29	Joe Schoendorf, partner, Accel Partners
30	John Hartnett, SVP Marketing, Palm One
31	Jonathan Medved, general partner, Israel Seed Fund
32	Jonathan Schwartz, president & COO, Sun Microsystem
33	Jordan Greenhall, founder and CEO, DivX
34	Julie Levenson, head of Private Equity and PIPEs Placement, Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin
35	Keynote: Jonathan Schwartz, president & COO, Sun Microsystems
36	Keynote: Niklas Zennström, CEO, Skype
37	Kim Polese, CEO, SpikeSource
38	Mark Cuban, owner, Dallas Mavericks
39	Mark Cuban, owner, Dallas Mavericks
40	Mark Fletcher, vice president & general manager, Bloglines at Ask Jeeves
41	Mark Heesen, president, NVCA
42	Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL
43	Michael Markman
44	Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, best-selling author, and veteran film critic
45	Michael Moe, CEO, ThinkEquity Partners LLC
46	Michael Moe, CEO, ThinkEquity Partners LLC
47	Michael Weiss, CEO, Streamcast Networks
48	Mike Homer, founder and Chairman, Kontiki and the Open Media Network
49	Mike Homer, founder and Chairman, Kontiki and the Open Media Network
50	Ned Desmond, executive editor, Time Inc Interactive
51	Packy Kelly, Partner, KPMG
52	Peter Hirshberg
53	Rahul Kapoor, partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
54	Rich Karlgaard, Publisher, Forbes
55	Rod Smith, VP Emerging Technologies, IBM
56	Ross Mayfield, CEO, SocialText
57	Sandy Berger, former White House National Security Advisor
58	Sandy Berger, former White House National Security Advisor
59	Stephen Elop, CEO, Macromedia
60	Susan Ayers-Walker, Chairman, MIT/Stanford Venture Lab
61	Tim Draper, managing partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
62	Tom Byers, professor, Stanford University
63	Toni Schneider, VP, Yahoo Developer Network, Yahoo!
64	Tony Perkins, Editor, AlwaysOn
65	Tony Perkins, founder & editor
66	Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO, Digital Chocolate
67	Moderator: Allen Delattre, Partner, Accenture
68	Moderator: Andy Kessler, CEO, Velocity Media
69	Moderator: Bambi Francisco, MarketWatch
70	Moderator: David Scott Lewis, CEO, IT E-Strategies
71	Moderator: Eric Janszen, President & CEO, AutoCell
72	Moderator: Kenneth Wilcox, President and CEO/SVB Financial Group and Silicon Valley Bank
73	Moderator: Louise Kehoe, media consultant and former journalist, Financial Times
74	Moderator: Marc Canter, founder and CEO, Broadband Mechanics
75	Moderator: Morgan McLintic, vice president, LEWIS Global Public Relations
76	Moderator: Paul Saffo, Research Director, Institute for the Future
77	Moderator: Ray Lane, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
78	Moderator: Roger McNamee, founder, managing partner, Elevation Partners
79	Moderator: Steve Jurvetson, managing partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
80	Moderator: Tom Byers, professor, Stanford University
81	Moderator: Tony Perkins, AlwaysOn
82	Moderator: Tony Perkins, AlwaysOn
83	Moderator: Tony Perkins, founder & editor, AlwaysOn

Comments

[Matt]

Toni Schneider is not a woman. Here's his website:

http://www.schneidersf.com/schneidersf_toni.html

[Toni Schneider]

Hi Lisa, I spell my name with an 'i' which made you think I'm a female speaker on the list. Alas, I'm a guy (who grew up in Switzerland where Tonys are Tonis), so there are even fewer women in the line up than you thought...

[Lisa Stone]

Toni, Matt, thank you very much for the correction.

[Lisa Stone]

I'm having trouble with this post in Typepad - the program won't accept my editor's correction at the top or fixing the table, argh. I will work to update this post tonight from home. Thanks for your patience, Toni.

[Joe Clark]

TypePad is probably behaving properly in the face of 412 validation errors and the nastiest tag soup I've seen all year. Just what is the <place> element?

Try improving your HTML to something in the same space-time continuum as valid code and things will probably work better.

[Lisa Stone]

>Try improving your HTML to something in the same space-time continuum as valid code and things will probably work better.

Joe, I can tell you're new to my blog, so I'll clarify for you and anyone else who doesn't know the following: I've never made a secret of the fact that while I am expert at some things, HTML is not one of them! I'm learning as I go. That's why I chose Typepad as my blog hosting service. I'm happy with it.

[Joe Clark]

And we now have significant evidence that blogging while not knowing HTML and being happy with TypePad is a combination that is no longer supportable. Your (and its) invalid HTML is apparently preventing you from actually editing your own work.

We must gain mastery of our basic tools. You could read Molly Holzschlag's _Spring into HTML and CSS_ to learn standard HTML. Yes, she's a woman.

[Lisa Stone]

There you go Toni - the fix is in. Thanks for your patience.

[Ruby]

Thank you for doing this, Lisa! This could be the speaker list for almost any technology-related conference I have ever attended. The only exception is conferences about nonprofit technology since that low-wage sector is populated mostly by women.

Still, it pisses me off that anyone still requires justification for something like BlogHerCon.

A.) Sexism is rampant.

B.) Even if it wasn't, why shouldn't women and their friends get together and talk about issues of concern to us?

Jeez!

[Ruby]

Hey Joe, what's your problem? If you are so offended by Lisa's code, go read someone else's blog!

[Joe Clark]

I'm not "offended" by anything. And "if you don't like it, buzz off" is hardly consistent with the blog ethos.

[mobile jones]

Joe, your blog ethos seems to include determining the standard by which all blogs are acceptable or not. Communicating the information on this page is what is important, and I would go farther an say it's the most important thing a blog does. The state of the code is a result of lousy tools. Unless your particular brand of blog ethos, also, dictates that only web developers should blog. That would be kinda silly wouldn't it?

If you're looking for someone to criticize about the state of code, you should look up those developers who build the tools. It's a matter of priorities and misplaced frustration, unless you're offering to fix the problem you've identified. Is that what you meant to do? Or were you just throwing rocks?

[Roxanne]

It's all about control, ladies and gents. Who defines and who decides. Blogging is that not different than any other communication activity.

[Donna]

That list illustrates your point perfectly.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be participating at BlogHer. Thank you (and the rest of the Board) for making this happen.

[Elise]

About time someone pointed this out publicly. It's been the same ole same ole every year since the AO conference began.

[Joe Clark]

Lisa specifically blamed TypePad for her inability to express herself in the form of an HTML table ("I'm having trouble with this post in Typepad-- the program won't accept my editor's correction at the top or fixing the table"). TypePad shouldn't be inserting invalid HTML, *and* Lisa should have enough mastery of her tools-- including HTML-- to paste in correct HTML. (The sequence {table}{tr}{td}{/td}{/tr}{/table} is not complicated. A woman who is a leader in Web standards has written extensive documentation and teaching materials that Lisa could use.)

There are two problems here, as I've identified. Hence, Mobile Jones, "[c]ommunicating the information on this page" was impaired in this case-- impossible, in fact.

And criticizing developers who build the code? Try Googling the phrase "Calling bullshit on Six Apart." I don't work in Web standards and accessibility for nothing.

[Lisa Stone]

Joe, I disagree. I think my comments above speak for themselves. Whatever. Let's move along.