Ok, FINALLY, here are some of my Blogher notes. Only a few weeks late, hey…stop yer sniveling.

Here goes:
The How to be Naked Session was awesome and centered largely around privacy issues.
The panel: Ronni, Koan, Heather

Some of the comments made:

Ronni: “Don’t be afraid to say how old you are.” (Ronni is 64, I think).
Koan: “Make some rules and then don’t deviate from them–ever.”
Heather spoke of the benefits of blogging within the context of her depression, and how it is sometimes like group-therapy. Her blog readers basically told her, “it’s ok to tell us these things.” She said for the most part her readers were overwhelmingly supportive, though there was perhaps 1% that were nasty, sending her things like “You will have your child taken away–and I will see to it.” But most people were kind, saying, “We’ll be here for you.”

At some point a woman mentioned fear of losing custody of her child because of her blog. For a minute this sucked all the air out of the room–I suppose there is nothing more terrifying to female bloggers with kids. But it was agreed that this is not as likely to occur in reality as it might seem. Various cases involving divorce and blogs were mentioned.

Mena said she took a vacation for the first time in four years (”I can hear it now: ‘Oh look she’s Spending that MT3 money!’”), and talked about how hard blogging is for her now that she has corporate responsibilities.

And the discussion turned to the question: which is better? ten readers that absolutely love you or a million readers with some that hate you? I dunno, is there a middle ground here? Both extremes suck in their own way–but the problem with having such a large audience like Heather does is that it becomes a job, and with that comes a lot of pressure. Heather actually has to hire a babysitter to blog.

With regard to privacy issues, Koan said, “Imagine the worst person in the world reading the post; what would happen?” Imagine that scenario, and use that criteria for your posting, she said.

How do you deal with stalkers?
Heather (said rather flatly, but with a smile): “I have a 6 foot 3 husband who is extremely protective.” Some discussion ensued about how stalking happens more often in real life.

Anonymous posting: if you want the ultimate privacy, you can post anonymously. But it was said that the trouble with anonymous posting is that it’s hard to take anonymous posting quite as seriously. (I happen to agree with this). Anonymous blogging came up again in the mommy blogging session.

Final comment: Just because Koan was born without a uterus, doesn’t mean she didn’t deserve to be there. What’s with this uterus qualification anyway? Using that criteria, my own mother couldn’t come. Let’s try to be adult and open-minded, mmm-kay?

Next up: Mommy Blogging

The panel: Jenn, Jenny, Meghan

I briefly thought about sneaking into some of the other sessions (it sucks they ran so many interesting ones right at the same time), but once I was in I was hooked. It was wonderful, and topics ranged from cursing to privacy issues to “the Mommy Blogger” stigma. (That stigma came up again at the closing session when someone made an off-handed comment about mommy bloggers needing to move beyond their mommy world when they blog–or something like that). I was so pleased to see a roomful of women struggling with the same issues I do when it comes to blogging their ‘day job.’ Random quotes from the session:

The mommy stigma: “If you go to a party with your husband, as soon as you say you’re a SAHM–end of conversation.” Well, unless you say you have twins, at which point people gasp and then proceed to tell you about every twin in their family and every twin they know.

“I think it’s hysterical that it’s the mommy bloggers that use the most profanity.” Yes, in fact it’s come to the point where blogging is the only place I can cuss…because if you’re not careful, you will hear your little toddler saying stuff like this (audio clip–WARNING: NOT work or kid safe). Fortunately only one twin learned this, and she is forgetting how to say it. Oops.

Trolls and nasty reader comments: someone told one of the panelists that her kids were “mangy crotch monkeys.” This really made the room crack up. (Speaking of that, Melissa has a really cool entry on reader hate mail here).

An issue that came up several times was that of husbands. What do you do when they don’t like your blog? Or think you’re wasting time you should be spending with the kids? Or think you’re saying things you shouldn’t? With regard to self-and-husband censorship on your blog, Mindy remarked, “You can have trolls on the outside and trolls on the inside.” Wow. That would be a great slogan for a blog, wouldn’t it? “Trolls within, trolls without.”

The importance of blogging as an outlet for moms: one panelist said (Megan, I think), “The four B’s is how I survive: Benadryl, bedtime and bribery–and now blog.”

One woman (yes I know who it was but I don’t think it’s my business to highlight who) in the session cried a little when the topic of working vs. SAHMing came up, saying that she had to work for the first eighteen months of her son’s life: “I had absolutely no choice. But now that I’m at home, I worry that my blog is boring.” Someone piped up: “You need to find your inner angst.” I worry about this too somewhat, and my policy has generally been that no post is better than a really boring one.

As was discussed briefly in the Naked session, the issue of kids and blogging came up once again. Are you putting your kid in danger by talking about her on your blog? It was generally agreed that you are probably putting your kid in a bigger danger just going to the park. In the Naked session Ronni had many reservations about posting pictures of your kids on your blog, because you “just don’t know, and you hear bad things in the media all the time.” I would argue that bloggers don’t buy into the media sensationalist circus nearly as much as most people. As someone said, “You’re more likely to get struck by lightning than have your kid get snatched.”

And then a very important topic came up (very important for me, anyway): Just how do you find the time to blog? This was never answered very definitively.
“When I’m in the shower I’m thinking about what I’m going to be writing next.”
“The hard part is when they cry when they see you go towards the computer.” Ha!
“I set a timer and when it dings my kids know I’m done with the blog.”
Along these lines it was asked, “How much do you edit?” Obviously this is a big factor in the limited time you have. I believe the general consensus was pretty close to “none,” and this is one area where I guess I differ from the group. I edit a LOT. I never, ever submit a post that I haven’t edited a little–and usually a lot–and that takes time. (So here you have reason #2 why I don’t post as often as I’d like. This very post–with all the editing and linking–took over three hours). Not only am I totally unable to deal with idea of throwing up raw verbal diarrhea up on the web, I don’t think my readers would like it very much either. Right? Right. I do not know how others like Heather are able to do this, but I suppose that is testament to her incredible writing skill, which really is all the more impressive considering she’s been able to keep that up while surrounded in parentoodhood, sleep deprivation, depression, mommy brain and everything else.

And finally we came back to the anonymous blogs issue. Jenn came across one of these and thought it would be a cool challenge to find out who the anonymous blogger was. It took some time, but in the end, she succeeded. She didn’t use any special tools other than Google and some careful sleuthing, either. The lesson here is that even if you think you are completely anonymous, you probably aren’t.

In all the conference was a real creative shot in the arm and I’d love to see a whole session devoted to Finding Time to Blog next year.

I only have two minor complaints: the wireless connectivity (or lack thereof) and the signage. I wish I hadn’t wasted 20 minutes of my life looking for the right conference hall. Now I am totally not ruling out that my sleep-deprived, lobotomized brain played a large role in this, but still. I wish there had been a large sign out in front of the Tech Mart, since it is directly next to a large conference center where someone might assume the conference was. The signage inside the actual conference was pretty good, so why skimp on the outside?

Moving on…

Bloggers I’d like to see at the conference next year:
Ally
Rashunda
Somebody’s Mom
The Baby Juggler
Heather and Jessica of GoFugYourself
TwoPlease (A long shot, as she has not one, but two sets of twins)
MotherofTwins

There are more, but some of them are trying to keep their blogs private for now, so no linky-linky for now.

And finally: The Flickr set. And the Blogher page already mentioned in a previous post. I’ve noticed you can find a lot more Blogher conference photos by using the Blogher tag…apparently not too many people are bothering to add them to the Blogher group.

Tags: Bloghercon, dailyblogher, Blogher

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