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?)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.