Rachelle Bowden, Heather Armstrong, Arieanna Foley :: BlogHer, San Jose
Our session crowd was so big people were standing and sitting on the floor bc there weren’t enough chairs :: BlogHer, San Jose
BlogHer, San Jose
Back from BlogHer in San Jose and just trying to wake up! My flight didn’t get in on Sunday night until about 12:30 am on Monday. I was so tired yesterday!
I think that the conference went well. I got in late on Friday night and on Saturday ran around in circles trying to figure out where to get my registration badge. Another attendee told me to go out by the pool, where almost everything was happening, then the front desk said to go back by the pavilion, then the guy in the pavilion said to go back up by the pool. Talk about frustrating. At one point I just ran into Traci, my coworker from FeedBurner, and then luckily I saw Mena, Krissy and Kimberly from Six Apart and they were in the same situation, running around trying to find their badges. Somehow Krissy got all of our badges.
Ok. That’s done. Next we went to a panel that had some really good discussion about identity and obligations and how much you need to represent yourself online, whether it be your race, gender, religious beliefs, sexuality, or just your personality. How much do you reveal? Then was lunch and then my panel, “From Here to Autonomy.” For all of you who have asked already, Heather Armstrong is the same in person as she is online. For some reason I thought she’d be quieter and less outspoken, but not so much. Funny, no beating around the bush and painfully honest. I wasn’t really like “starstruck” by her, but I found it odd to be sitting next to a person whose site I’d read for many years and whose photo I’d seen online for many years. And we only got to speak for a few seconds and it was in front of like 200 people. “How are we gonna do this?” “So, when’s the sunscreen endorsement coming through?” (joking!) And then we had to start the panel. I think the session went well. I intro’d Heather and Arieanna (who writes for 17 blogs including blogs on topics she hates, like Lindsay Lohan), they spoke a little about each of their situations, and then it was about an hour of Q&A. Like every panel I’ve been on, I started out nervous and talking too fast, but ended up calm and able to even answer some questions from my experiences with rachelleb.com and Chicagoist. I just need to do it more to get over that, I think.
After the panel, Heather had a huge line of people who just wanted to shake her hand or say how her writing has inspired them or how her experiences have let them know it’s ok to not be perfect. Lots of people wanted to get their photo with her. It was pretty cool. I can imagine this happens to her at every blog-related conference she attends now.
When I we all finally got out of there, I met up with Traci who was sitting out in the sun chatting it up with other attendees. We mingled for a while then caught the CalTrain to San Francisco, where we spent the rest of the weekend. More on that later!
Photos of us on the panel: 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4
Also, just noticed that BlogHer just announced that next year they’re having 2 conferences, one in Chicago and one in NYC.
