I didn't attend Blogher, but many of my friends and colleagues did, and mostly got lots out of it. I did pick up an undercurrent of discomfort from my female geek friends at what they saw as the low tech content of the conference, and even 'all these women in high heels giggling together'. Melinda Casino, Shelley Powers and Tara Hunt express various concerns with tone and with intrusive sponsorship.
The problems of sponsorship and product pitches always intrude into conferences - with the BarCamp model they get minimised by the low budget ethos and emphasis on emergent scheduling, but having watched several friends put together big conferences that involve taking over hotels for a few days, the need to raise significant sponsorship money does lead to editorial pressure on the schedule, and it difficult to walk the line between Jane Jacobs' Commercial and Guardian modes.
However, reading some of the posts by non-techie Blogher attendees, like IzzyMom and tastetheworld, what I see is the sheer pleasure at meeting people you have only known through their online writing, and making the personal connection with them. I recognise the experience I had when I crashed O'Reilly's eTech in 2003, and was able to pick up conversations with people based on what we'd been writing about, and overcome my previous inability to make smalltalk in big groups. The continual growth of blogging means that there are now many more interest groups out there beyond my techie clan. Lisa, Jory, Elise and the other Blogher organisers enabled lots of women with different interests to get together and have these personal epiphanies, and resolve Ford Prefect's quest for 'a peer group and a stiff drink' - well done.
Technorati Tags: Barcamp, Blogher, blogs, conference, emergence, etech
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