A woman’s DAAAYYYY!!!! (Woman’s Day, Power, Day, Lovely Day…think of the Bill Withers’ song – “Lovely Day” as the theme music for this entry.)
How privileged was I to attend the BlogHer Reach Out Tour in Boston on October 11?
Incredibly privileged. I received:
- Validation/Affirmation (in abundance)
- Information (useful, practical, important)
- Conversation (stimulating)
- Connection (friends and colleagues I didn’t even know I had)
- Ideas (nearly overwhelmed by ideas that are bouncing through my brain because of this stimulating event).
- Community (we are every where!)
The community started when one of my sister bloggers Lydia Walshin, who blogs about food, graciously offered me a ride to the conference and invited me to dinner after the conference.
A STANDING OVATION to Lisa Stone, Eliza Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins (co-founders of Blogher) who put together one of the most incredible conferences I’ve ever experienced. (The ambiance, the food – best food I ever had at a conference, and the vendors were just right!)
A special shout-out to Sarah Dopp who ran the Geek Lab with grace and patience. She showed me something I wanted to know and now it is in my repertoire forever. Thank you.
My sister panelists, Christine Koh and Susan Getgood, on the Blogging Basics: I Blog, There I am…Figuring Out Your Blogging Mojo panel were wonderful, accomplished women…hey, how did I get on that panel?
Charlene Prince Birkeland helped us learn over lunch with her presentation on writing a better blog and introduction to shine.yahoo.com – a community of women recently launched by yahoo.
Beth Kanter did a wonderful job leading the panel Blogging Basics: Managing Information Overload: How to find your Blogging Community. I have to give her props because she had a cute and clever power-point to accompany her presentation which was interactive and informative and kept us participating in the late afternoon. (This is no mean feat!)
I met so many bloggers throughout the day and had substantive conversations. I especially liked the “speed dating” exercise that started off the day. It set a tone of camaraderie for the rest of the day!
Various blogging communities were there in force: mommy bloggers, food bloggers, generalists, tech bloggers, business bloggers, lesbian bloggers, relationship bloggers…
I am waiting anxiously for the announcement of the location of the national conference because I will be there! The community, the sisterhood, the knowledge is too energizing to miss.
Candelaria, it was a pleasure to meet you and I share your sentiments about the conference completely. This was my first BlogHer event and I thought it was amazing. The presentations were informative — you were an excellent member of your panel, btw. The setting was very comfortable. Everything ran like clockwork. The food was also the best I’ve ever had at any conference ever. What blew me away was the passion, the warmth, and the camaraderie of these women (and a few men!) bloggers. I truly had the feeling of acceptance and empowerment. I have found my people and they are good! I can’t wait for the convention and I look forward to seeing you there.
Hi Candelaria – it was great to meet you in person at the conference after having read many of your posts at BlogHer.com and here, and thanks so much for being on the panel, I learned a lot from what you had to say! I am also waiting to hear where the national conference will be and thinking about attending – not something I planned to do before I went to the Reach Out event.
It was an amazing day. Two days later and I am still trying to process it all – I think a massive brain dump into an empty Word document is in order.
I greatly enjoyed your contributions to the Blogging Mojo session (and your comments during the Info Overload session) and wish I had the chance to make my way over to you and shake your hand in person!
It was great meeting you at BlogHer. I’ve been to three previous BlogHer conferences and they’ve all been great! (However this was the BEST food ever, agree completely about that.) Look forward to seeing you again at the summer one.
It was such a great day, wasn’t it? Good food, good company, good conversation. So glad that I got to meet you!
I sure hope that we see each other at the next conference. Dying to know where it will be.
Hi Candelaria,
BlogHer Boston was fabulous and meeting you just made it more so. I’ve read your very thoughtful comments on BlogHer for awhile and it was great to put a face to the name.
Your panel discussion was very informative and I got a kick out of chatting over lunch.
Megan
It was such a pleasure to meet you. Your philosophy of looking at our choices by how we want to walk in this world really struck home with me, and I thank you for giving the concept such clear articulation.