"Look in the mirror and lead" BlogHer '06 keynote by Arianna Huffington, Caroline Little, Mena Trott and Grace Davis

Pictured from left to right: Arianna Huffington, Molly, Grace Davis' daughter, Grace Davis and her sister, Terri. Photo credit: Mary Tsao.

Last January, when we were preparing to launch the new BlogHer.org site and create today's directory of 4,100+ women bloggers, one of our new editors emailed me to suggest a tagline. "You should call it BlogHer II: The Revenge," wrote Tracey Gaughran-Perez, who blogs Sweetney, referring to the question that inspired the first BlogHer conference.

I was reminded of Tracey's comment Saturday night as 720 of us watched Arianna Huffington, Caroline Little, Mena Trott and Grace Davis answer Moderator Chris Nolan's questions at the closing keynote of BlogHer '06. In the past year, each of these women has leveraged Web-based technologies to pursue their professional agendas and triumphed -- while experiencing with unrelenting public pressure and excoriating personal criticism.

If success is the best revenge, revenge must be sweet indeed for this quartet. For today, each of these women todays enjoys kudos from their readers/users (even critics), while at the same time being able to point to cold, hard facts such as Web traffic and revenue that demonstrate their ideas were worth pursuing.

How'd they do it? Nolan's skillful interviews Saturday evening revealed four very different women whose core message was remarkably the same: Look in the mirror and lead.

"Instead of waiting for the white knight to come and save us, we need to find the leader in the mirror and act on those skills fearlessly." - Arianna Huffington

"I've always had my pilot light on. Sometimes I don't pay attention to it but it's there. In responding to Katrina, I didn't even think about the obstacles. I just thought that I should be there helping somehow." - Grace Davis

"You either fly with it (change) or you don't ever get on the boat. And I think you get on the boat." - Caroline Little

"I've followed my gut and my passion...I 've seen so many people driven by title. As soon as you know someone cares more about title than the product, it really shows." - Mena Trott

What do I mean by blistering criticism

Last year at this time, the press was joyfully dissing two-month-old Huffington Post and founder Arianna from Redmond to the Beltway. Washington Post|Newsweek Interactive, led by Caroline Little, was struggling along with the rest of the newspaper industry to please both Wall Street and its Web users, while taking risks and making mistakes. Mena Trott's company, Six Apart, was still working through the cultural upheaval of buying Live Journal, and she'd publicly had it with trolls. And Grace Davis had no idea that Hurricane Katrina would devastate the Gulf Coast, FEMA wouldn't find its proverbial ass with either hand, and that she would end up on CNN for getting diapers and ice to Mississippi before the U.S. government. Instead, she was still calling her blog "Dr. Laura's Worst Nightmare," and receiving hate mail from anyone who thought a mommy blogger shouldn't use the f-bomb or write about politics.

Success is the best revenge

Now for the revenge part. Today, The Huffington Post's most excoriating critic is writing for Huffington and publicly avows the site's quality. As panic continues to spread in the boardrooms of traditional news companies, Little's boss recently voiced his support for her leadership and reported that revenues in her division were up 34 percent over last year. Trott's company has changed-up the blog-hosting game by introducing Typepad widgets and released a new product, Vox. As for Grace Davis, well, in addition to that ice-to-Mississippi-thing, she now gets paid to blog for SFGate.com and ClubMom, and received the largest audience applause when the quartet was introduced Saturday night.

I'll upload some more quotes tonight, after I write one zillion thank you notes. And we'll upload the podcast as soon as we can.

Do you agree with me? Disagree? I'd love to know your opinion of this discussion. And please - if you blogged this -- add links to your blogs below. Thanks.

Editor's note: Cross-posted from BlogHer.org

Comments

[Rita Arens]

I completely agree. As I was telling a lot of nonbloggers at work today about the conference, they kept saying, "And they were all women?" When I mentioned the keynote speakers, there were a few dropped jaws. My own husband was surprised Saturn was there with seven cars.

Whether or not the world was ready, the women bloggers are here. It takes a village to raise a child, and it seems that it takes a network to prove a point. By banding together, even if we aren't all mothers or don't all share genre-blogging interests, we're gaining the blogosphere's attention. I think it's fabulous that more than 700 disparate women could feel solidarity, if even for one night. I was very proud of us.

[Elkit]

That's Grace's sister Terri on the right.

But that's not why I stopped by here. I came by to say thank you and tell you how much in awe of you I am for starting and running BlogHer.

[Lisa Stone]

Elkit, thank *you* for coming - I loved your contribution to our writing session. I am so glad you live close by so that I can see you at BlogHer functions around the year.

Rita--as I so often find myself writing in response to you--amen. Thank you for embracing the whole of us, the wild teeming mass of disparate opinions that made up our sessions and our discussions. It meant so much to me to meet. I hope to get more of a change to talk next summer, when we're in your backyard?

[Toby]

Lisa - Congrats! I must admit I had a few wobbly moments when I learned that 200 (attendees)had morphed to 700+ and wondered if intimacy and "blogginess" of BlogHer 2005 could be maintained. The magic was there .. most definitely!

[leahpeah]

lisa - i wish i would have been able to talk to you. i was so busy with the filming that i didn't get to go to all the panels that i wanted but it was obvious every time i walked through an ocean of women, just how much they were all enjoying themselves. i think that bringing 700+ strong, intelligent and beautiful women together has so much potential for good and amazing things. i'm so glad you and the other founders decided to do this. i cant wait to see how it grows year to year.

[Lisa Stone]

Toby, I'm so glad you think so! Thank you again for your work with Nancy to organize the Birds of a Feather meetups. That's one that I think we can serve in advance with the site next year, don't you?

Leahpeah, the one and only! I heard fantastic things about your interviews -- thank you for raising the profiles of so many women. Will you please come back here and update us when you pieces go live? Bring on the viewer's guide, woman!

[pamela]

Sounds like I missed an amazing event...If I could have re-arranged my trip, I would have-- I was out of the country. SV Mom's Blog was well represented at Blogher, and from all the posts sounds like I truly missed out. Hope to catch up with you. Thanks for all that you do for women bloggers.

[Kyran]

Lisa,

I missed the conference and Huffington's comments, so I am probably just repeating stuff that someone else has covered, but it has been my experience that whenever someone or some entity emerges into a leadership role (and I mean leadership in terms of providing direction and taking initiative, not necessarily being "in charge" of anything), that same someone or entity will invariably catch a lot of shit. It took me a while to realize that the shit slinging didn't necessarily mean the initiative wasn't wanted or needed--it just comes with being on the frontline. It sounds to me like you all have done an amazing job in a short time. Keep up the great work!

[Lisa Stone]

Thank you k! I've got my ears open and my notepad out, so when you have more feedback I welcome it. A URL to anything you've written is invited too. :)