I’ve just returned from my trip to California for BlogHer ’08 and a short vacation, both of which I intend to tell you ALL about either here or over on Snapshot Chronicles, depending on the topic. I certainly didn’t intend a two-week hiatus from blogging, but I was so busy being there and truly enjoying the experiences — in San Francisco with my mom and son, at the conference and then up in Sonoma for a few days — that it just sort of happened.
But I have some great posts planned, which hopefully will make up for my absence.
Starting with my reflections on BlogHer ’08. I’ve been to all four BlogHer Conferences, and have seen it evolve from its fairly humble beginnings in a San Jose office park to a world class blogging conference, community and advertising network.
1000 attendees this year. Sold out again. As the song goes, I’ve seen the changes.
From the first conference which had a definite tilt toward technical and business types. So much so that the few mom bloggers in attendance said quite clearly that they felt marginalized. (2005 post-conference observations).
To year two, which was the explosion of the mom blogs. So much so that the conference seemed to tilt completely the other way, leaving the more business-oriented adrift. BlogHer Business came along to fix that little problem. (2006 post-conference observations one and two)
To year three in Chicago. BlogHer was definitely growing up. With the accompanying growing pains. Bigger and better than the year before, it had terrific programming, but suffered from being dispersed over three locations — the Navy Pier conference site and two hotels. The sponsors were also much more prominent. This is purely a statement of fact, as I agree with BlogHer’s sponsor policy. Sponsor support is the best way to keep the cost of the conference within reach of the community, most of whom are NOT submitting expense reports to their companies for the trip.
In 2007, the community was now too large for everyone to know or speak with everyone else during the conference, and it was clearly stratifying along both topic and, for lack of a better word, popularity. Mom seemed to be the word. It was clear that advertisers and sponsors were most interested in mom bloggers, with an emphasis on A-list moms. Read last year’s post conference posts (mine here, for others, just search on BlogHer 07) if you want to rehash all the post conference controversies that resulted. I don’t, at least not in this post. Let’s just say there was all sorts of resentment, along multiple topics. From why do companies send mom bloggers lame pitches for laundry soap to why don’t the advertisers and sponsors value women who aren’t mom bloggers or A-list. Many valid points, all of which have been discussed ’til the horse became glue.
The most relevant thing about last year for today’s discussion is that 2007 was the first year of numerous invitation-only parties, most held the night before the conference began. In previous years, the organized party action was by and large at the BlogHer sponsored events.
This year, there were even more invitation-only parties and swag suites, both outside of and during the conference hours.
While I am glad to see BlogHer grow into a world-class conference that attracts sponsor attention, I worry that the spirit that attracted so many of us to a woman’s blogging conference will get lost in the swag and party shuffle. One of the reasons BlogHer has the sponsored parties on both nights of the conference and also started the Newbie party this year is to make sure that no one gets left out. Rankings, ratings, book deals, tv appearances etc. etc. None of that matters. Everyone gets the same two drink tickets.
It’s all about the community. That’s one of the things that makes BlogHer so special. It’s more than a conference. Sure we don’t always agree and sometimes we fight, but there’s more there there than just two days in a swank hotel.
Don’t misunderstand. I don’t have a problem with swag or parties. It has been terrific to see the women’s blogging community grow and attract attention from sponsors and advertisers who, to use a cliche, "get it." Who get that you should talk with bloggers, not at them. That you should participate in the community, not try to "leverage" it. For many women who attend BlogHer, this is their vacation. For the moms, it may be one of the few times in the year that they get a couple days to let their hair down without kids. It’s terrific that companies want to take them to dinner or throw a cocktail party or give them some good swag.
It’s also very understandable. If a company has been working with women bloggers, why wouldn’t it want to have an invitation-only dinner for the people they’ve been working with, as Nintendo did Friday night. Or create an event for Sunday like Michelin. The swag suites are okay too, as long as they are open to everyone, as MomSelect did by handing out flyers and Alpha Mom did by announcing on Twitter.
I just think we’re reaching a point where it’s too much. How many parties can people really attend? How much swag can we stuff in our suitcases before we have to pay the overweight or second bag charge to the airline? One mom I spoke with on Thursday night at the Kirtsy/Alltop party had six other parties to attend that night, including the open-to-all People’s Party.
While it’s fine — wonderful even — that sponsors are willing to foot the bar bill the night before the conference, how much is too much? What do you really get out of a party if you are worrying about being late to the next one? Are we counting cards collected or making connections?
One problem, and reason for so many pre-conference parties, is that there is so little time outside the conference hours to connect. BlogHer did its best to accommodate the sponsors by making sure that the breaks were long enough for attendees to check out Sesame Street, the spa suite, the Internet Cafe and all the exhibit tables. While this may have made some of the breaks too long, by and large I think attendees appreciated having unstructured time to talk with other bloggers without feeling like they were blowing off the conference sessions.
Swag, parties, it’s all good.
Until it’s not.
I personally draw the line at invitation-only events held during the conference hours. I just think it is wrong to have a private event during the conference hours that draws attendees away from the conference program. Away from the speakers who have worked so hard to prepare for their sessions. There were other examples during BlogHer but far and away the worst in my opinion was the private suite that SixApart held Friday afternoon during the Community Keynote.
At the Community Keynote, twenty bloggers read their posts on everything from depression, body image and suicide to the Wiggles, porn and farts. For some bloggers, this was their very first time speaking in public. The emotion on the stage and in the room was palpable during the more intensely personal posts. When it was funny, we all laughed.
It was the very essence of the BlogHer community. And at least five of the bloggers who read at the Community Keynote are on SixApart platforms (Moveable Type, TypePad and VOX).
But SixApart decided to hold a private party at the same time.
Definitely not in the right spirit. Which is why I didn’t go, even though three people offered to let me tag along with them. Yeah, even though this blog is currently, and I stress currently, on TypePad, I didn’t rate an invite. Oh well…. I wouldn’t have gone anyway 🙂
What would I like to see instead?
I was pleased to see companies getting together for joint events like Kirtsy, Alltop and the sponsors of the People’s Party, and I hope we see even more of this in the future. But I’m greedy. I want more.
I’d like to see a major company NOT throw a party and instead donate a significant amount in the names of the attendees to breast cancer or autism research, two issues which are very near and dear to this community. And I’m not talking a token $10,000; make it meaningful, and I guarantee the BlogHer community will remember you.
And the swag? While it’s fun to collect trinkets and trash (and there was some good stuff this year), in the end we really pay for the free shit. Either the suitcase weighs too much or we have to check a second bag or we have to ship a box home, all of which costs money. For the free stuff. In my case, I was glad to have it because it made lovely padding for the wine we shipped back from Sonoma. But what would be really cool is for companies to mail it afterward. Just show us the goodies and get our mailing address. Don’t abuse our trust by automatically adding us to your mailing list, but I guarantee you, people will appreciate NOT having to lug your product samples home. Unless it is small and really useful, we really would prefer to get it later.
I also think companies that throw parties or host swag suites at the conference should be official sponsors of the conference at some level. It’s about supporting the whole community, not just part of it. This will require some creative thinking from BlogHer on how to structure it, but I know they are up to the task. It will also require the companies throwing the private events to coordinate, not compete, with the main event.
That’s the spirit of BlogHer.
—
Speaking of useful swag, the best items were the 3-plug outlet from Topix and the Joby Zivio Bluetooth headset. Both already have a home in my laptop bag and purse respectively. Small, useful items. Everything else? In the box with the wine.
And the best party? Y and Lindsay’s infamous Cheeseburger party. Supported this year by Alpha Mom.
Tags: BlogHer 08, BlogHer
Wow, great recap– I almost feel like I went (almost). I’m surprised and a little disgusted at the SixApart private party: it really shows little respect for the hand that feeds it, in my opinion.
I think on some level, we sort of hoped that one really inclusive party would be enough. Then we very naively were surprised when we were immediately overwhelmed by how many people showed up. Even with all of the other parties.
And for every other party I was invited to Thursday night (despite the fact that I could only set up for The People’s Party and attend *it* alone), I *always* thought, “Gah, just come to our party. It’s for everyone. The end.” Yet…
Every company wants to be the star and there are a finite number of fans available. So what do you do?
So much to think about for next year. This was my first BlogHer and, well, much learned.
Susan, a terrific recap, especially because it absolves me of the guilt that I haven’t blogged all week – or done my BlogHer round up yet. Too much work on the my blogging business rather than getting down to the business of blogging, meaning writing.
That being said, I wish I could have cloned myself. I was at other parties and dinners you didn’t mention with clients, coworkers, and friends from previous BlogHers. And missed out on a lot of really good fun. (Never did make it to the newbie mixer and didn’t get to see much of SF except for Macy’s and a few restaurants.)
However, one thing I want to stress is that the Unconference is worth going to because it’s a great chance to meet people one on one. However, because I went I missed out on hanging with the food bloggers this year. So much to do and so little time!
Susan these are great and thoughtful comments and I think spot-on. Like you, I’ve been around or worked for a slew of start-ups and what I learned there applies here I think: As soon as an entity is good enough to fight over, people will fight over it. The competition is a symptom of success, as you noted. Too bad, but I fear part of the BH life from now on. Thanks for such great words.
One of my resolutions from BlogHer 08 is to be a bit less reclusive. I thought I was attending all the parties but I was only going to the official parties–until I read this post I had no idea how much activity I wasn’t invited to:)
I also want to recommend the unconference – I went last year and this year and both times it was the absolute highlight of my conference. I really resonate with the open space concept and it was truly BlogHers helping BlogHers. And where was that bluetooth and three prong plug..I completely missed those!
Totally agreed. Parties during the conference hours = icky.
Hi Susan – I’m on Typepad, have been for three years now, and was a reader at the Community Keynote. I was disappointed to learn that not only were they not an official sponsor (when so many of us use their products and clearly they could pay some of that back or forward) but they were holding the event opposite the keynote.
I do not know why Apple isn’t there, why Yahoo is dropping off when Flickr gets a lot of play in this environment or why SixApart isn’t paying the freight to BlogHer instead of hosting a stealth suite in the same hotel (tacky.) It should also be noted that a bunch of speakers, including myself, were linked fron Typepad’s “Everything” blog, such that I thought they WERE an official sponsor until I got there. Gross..
I did not visit the suite. If I had the time I’d move everything to WordPress now, which seems to have a lot more flexibility than I currently have. We’ll see. I just know that the BlogHer staff works very hard to get fair representation and keep costs down for us all, and as someone who has never made a dime from my blog but still pays SixApart 15 bucks a month for it, it would have seemed a good faith effort for them to be an official sponsor.
Great post – thanks.
Thanks for all the comments. I agree about the unconference. I attended last year and really enjoyed it. This year, though, sightseeing with my mom and son beckoned.
The People’s Party is an excellent model – multiple sponsors, open to all, night before the conference. I think it would be great if even more companies came forward to host this pre-conference bash.
Elana – both items I mentioned were in the exhibit hall, available to everyone. The headsets went fast the first morning.
Wow, Susan! Thanks for the CheeseburgHer Party props. I definitely LAUGHED the hardest at our party, that’s for sure. 🙂
I would go as far as to say that the invite-only parties create more divisiveness between bloggers than anything else during the conference. And that’s unfortunate that corporate interests are causing most of the drama/strife.
One thing that helped, I think, were those sponsors that held their invite-only parties with the understanding that their invitees would likely be bringing several friends with them. The Alltop/Kirtsy party was that way, but other party hosts insisted I give them a list of anyone I was planning on bringing in advance. As a result, I didn’t go to those parties.
Agree, just wrote my first post and am working on a second about feeling like I was in an 80s timewarp. It’s obviously I wanted to see a more activist focus since I consider myself an activist blogger, but big issues and events are happening right now and women should be organizing in a big way. At times I felt like I was in my first women’s studies class in the 90s…..and it was all about stories and sharing–good stuff, but its time to get busy. More tech how to sessions were warranted as well.
Lindsay — I agree, exclusiveness creates division. What was so great about the CheesburgHer Party, and why it was my favorite party, was that you welcomed everyone. It didn’t even matter if you didn’t get a burger or even a drink. It was just fun to be talking with friends and sharing in the hilarity.
I’ve heard lots of buzz about the Six Apart faux pas (and that of the bloggers who skipped the keynote to attend), but no one has assessed the meaning behind it as well as you have. Very interesting.
Hi — I just want to chime in with my take on your post. (I’m the founder & president of Six Apart). While I would agree with your assessment of private parties, a lot of the information about Six Apart isn’t quite accurate.
1. The Six Apart was only private in that it wasn’t sponsored by Blogher. Anyone was welcome to join us in the suite and we blogged/twittered about it at multiple times. All of these blog posts were public, as well as the twitter posts. We wanted anyone — regardless of platform — to stop by:
http://tinyurl.com/6mk7or
http://tinyurl.com/598um8
http://twitter.com/sixapart/statuses/860402915
http://twitter.com/sixapart/statuses/860077948
We had postcards to hand out but we were not pushy so as not to be insensitive to the official sponsors. If we were standing in the middle of the ballroom handing the cards out, I think that would have been more offensive.
2. I believe that we scheduled the party before the community keynote was announced and on the schedule — this is what I was told when I asked why there was an overlap. We were actually disappointed we all couldn’t attend that session since so many Six Apart folks were attending the conference and loving every moment. But we had printed the cards, planned the party, invited people, etc.
3. We had the Six Apart suite during the length of the entire conference. No one was limited to visiting us only during the keynote and if you wanted to stop by during a break that was encouraged. The party actually lasted longer than the keynote (I believe) so women stopped by after the official program ended.
4. We held it at the hotel not to steal thunder from the conference but because it was most convenient for the attendees. How else could you stop by for 10 minutes if it wasn’t just a walk and ride up an elevator?
5. Six Apart wasn’t an official sponsor, true. We’d love to sponsor all conferences but, money and budget is always a consideration. I don’t think just giving a conference a big check is the only way to support it. Over the years our involvement has included formal sponsorship, being a bag sponsor, attendance and speaking. While our participation varies every year, we always participate. This isn’t to say we wouldn’t be an official sponsor next year — we just didn’t this year.
6. As far as the statements about switching platforms go, I have to just say that if saw our offices, you’d have a hard time questioning our support for women bloggers and women in this industry (as well as the idea that we want to promote exclusivity). Our goal is to have a fair balance of men and women in our organization, and we’re merely doing better than anyone else in blogging by a long shot. If we have more women in attendance at Blogher than some of our competitors have women employed, I think that’s a good thing.
Could we have better executed the party? Of course! Everything can be improved the second time. We met tons of great women (on our platform and not on our platform) at the conference and in our suite. I attended almost every session (as well as spoke) and felt a huge rush afterwards.
We’re trying to help all bloggers (men and women) make a living off their blogs and an event like Blogher definitely reaffirms that we can do even more.
Susan, thank you for this post! As a co-founder of BlogHer I’ve struggled to define what extracurriculars are “good” for the conference and which ones threaten to take away from the sense of community. You’ve provided some sound explanation behind what doesn’t work. When creating all of the sponsorships this year we actively planned special events during free periods. We refer to anything during conference hours as “attendee time” and were pleased to see how respectful our sponsors were to it.
Where we fall into some difficulty is with groups who are not “officially” sponsors, as we don’t get the opportunity to coordinate with them as much, but in some cases orgs reached out to us and asked us how they could add to the event, not compete with it. Believe me, it makes a huge difference.
Still, I had some misgivings about the invite only events, which at times were billed as “BlogHer” events–it confused attendees who wondered why the opportunity was not open to everyone, and at times it confused sponsors. I will continue to be a huge PITA and urge these orgs to NOT do this.
Thanks again for this post.
Mena – thanks for leaving a comment. Six Apart certainly wasn’t the only company that held an event during conference hours or that hosted a suite. On principle, I dislike such shadow conferences, a regular feature at other industry events, because they distract people from the official event.
Sponsors pay good money to BlogHer for their exhibit space. This benefits the entire community in keeping registration costs down. A private event draws people away from the conference and only benefits the company throwing it. Not fair to the official sponsors at all.
I’m glad to hear that your suite was open to all throughout the conference. Drop-in suites are less problematic, although I still think the companies should be official sponsors at some level.
The fact remains however that you did hold a cocktail party Friday afternoon during the final programming timeslot. Say what you will about not knowing *what* the content would be before you went to the expense of planning the party, you still had to know that your party would be in conflict with the final programming of the afternoon. In my opinion, that was wrong.
It just gets worse when the content becomes a Community Keynote and not just a regular conference speech.
As to my comments on platform, regular readers of my blog already knew about my decision to move from TypePad to another platform; I mentioned it earlier this summer. Nothing to do with the party faux pas.
Susan, you expressed my thoughts exactly. I had a great time and found real friendships. But for me, I’m moving beyond blogging as a hobby and using it now to cultivate a business and meet with clients (like yourself) and will be writing off next year’s trip. I’d like to know I’m promoting my self as a business woman and find tips on how to succeed in this arena.
And sure, sure, I went as a personal blogger who licked people. But it’s all good. 😉
The swag and money, though, I’d be happy to give up in favor of donations. My children and I have enough “stuff” to go around. I was there for the personal connections anyway, not the swag.
I agree with you, as usual. I ended up not attending all of the parties I RSVP’d for because it was too much. I couldn’t get from one to the next fast enough, and I wanted to stay and hang out with people. I really wish I had stayed at the Alltop party longer, and got to the People’s Party sooner.
I don’t have a problem with private parties at all, although I agree they should be before or after conference events, and I wish they weren’t all on Thursday night. A party was held on Friday night that started after the cocktail party, and I thought that was a great idea for people who didn’t want to stop after 9pm.
And shipping swag home would be a great idea. They did it at the J&J event earlier this year, and I really appreciated it.
Great summary, as always. I agree on the excess of swag, though you neglected to mention that the folks from Zwaggle.com were there to help us recycle or repurpose our unwanted goods. If they take part next year, I hope they will remain ready to receive items on Sunday, once everyone is packed and has made their final choices about what goes home and what stays behind.
You hit the nail right on the head.
Especially about the best swag. Those two pieces made me ridiculously happy (Although is it sad that the 3-plug outlet was my VERY favorite thing?)
Loralee — not sad at all. The 3-plug outlet was the best, most useful piece of swag there. I use it all the time — more even than the bluetooth headset.