Announcing the BlogHer '09 Call for Ideas
by While we're working on finalizing our BlogHer '09 venue contract, so we can announce that by the end of the month, I am happy to keep BlogHer '09 on your mind by announcing the Call for Ideas for BlogHer '09.
If you're thinking this announcement seems earlier than last year, you are correct! We aim to have this Call for Ideas running for a month and to be able to announce at least a skeleton schedule before the end of the year!
Question: Why a "Call for Ideas" and not a "Call for Speakers" or "Call for Proposals" or something like that?
Answer: Because BlogHers are a generous bunch, and there are plenty of you who like to recommend other people to speak and want to suggest panels you'd like to attend, not personally speak on. And we're are all for that...any idea is welcomed, collected and reviewed by humans.
BlogHer '09 Tracks
This year we're featuring five tracks, as follows:
Identity and Passions: This is the track where we'll talk about who we are and what we like to do. We'll have one day of sessions dealing with the most personal blogging topics. In the past we've covered what it's really like to blog about our gender, our race, our sexual orientation, our hopes and dreams, our privacy, our fears, our most sensitive issues. We'll also have one day of sessions digging into the passions that fuel so much of our blogging. In the past we've covered FoodBlogging, CraftBlogging, KnitBlogging, and we know there are many other subjects out there that stoke your inner fires. What are the subjects we've covered that we could have dug deeper into? What are the passions we've yet to give the microphone to? Let us know.
The Business of You: So many bloggers are treating the personal platform of blogging as a professional platform too, and this track will explore how to do it wisely and well. Yes, this is where the monetization subject will live, but we can also discuss ethics, contracts...even your taxes. These economic times will not be a distant memory by next July, so discussing how to make the most of the blogging you love from a business perspective will undoubtedly still be a hot topic.
Politics & Activism: Politics, activism, social causes. 2008 was a huge political year in the American blogosphere, so it will be interesting to see where we focus our blogging energies in the aftermath of the U.S. election. This is the track to talk about how individuals and online communities are making noise, making a difference, making change. Can global issues get more attention? Will those that got engaged in the political discussion in '08 stay engaged? Will there be even better tools available to raise awareness, consciousness and funds?
MommyBlogging: We launched this track for the first time at BlogHer '08, and we will be repeating it. As the momosphere grows, it also segments. In '08 we spoke about parenting special needs, children, respecting your children's privacy, infertility, adoption and pregnancy loss, helping your kids develop healthy body images and, of course, the commercialization of MommyBlogging. What do you want to dig into in '09?
Geek Lab: The Tech Track: After experimenting with a Geek Lab approach on the Reach Out Tour, we're thinking of totally blowing apart the old Tech track model of a limited number of static sessions trying to speak to an incredibly broad range of skill and experience levels, and instead offering a big Geek Lab where you can partake of mini-presentations, office hours with experts, small group hacking opportunities, individual mentoring opportunities etc. etc. If you've figured out one really cool thing you'd like to share with attendees, let us know what it is, how long it would take to walk people through it, and what skill/experience level it's for. We're excited that this year we may finally crack the code of bringing the right technical content to our extremely diverse attendees!
OK, those are the tracks, so if that triggers some great ideas, then this year please:
Email both me (elisa@blogher.com) and our new full-time Conference Programming Manager Jes Ferris (jes@blogher.com) and tell us the following:
- Who you are and why you want to speak
- Which of our tracks you'd like to participate in, and your experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective about that subject
- Specific links that highlight that experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective
- Your contact information and a link to your blog(s)
- Who else you think should be contributing
Question: What about Birds of a Feather and Room of Your Own sessions?
Answer: once we have a skeleton schedule published we'll ask registered attendees to submit the Room of Your Own sessions they'd like to lead. The goal is to present additional topics that may get missed in the regular schedule, so we'll wait until after you can see what that schedule is.
As for Birds of a Feather, I have a question for you all: Did you like having Birds of a Feather meet-ups scheduled during session times, or would you prefer to go back to doing Birds of a Feather meet-ups during lunch? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Question: So, how long do we have to come up with brilliant ideas?
Answer: We hope to receive all ideas in the next five weeks (by November 24th) so that we can start publishing the schedule by the end of the year.
We look forward to seeing/hearing what you come up with, what you want and what you're dying to see on the schedule.
Posted In
XML Feed Recent Comments
Soothing tricks that
worked for us on post Enter for a chance to win a $1,000 Visa gift card from Aquaphor!
worked for us on post Enter for a chance to win a $1,000 Visa gift card from Aquaphor!
Whenever anyone
addresses
exactly what
you said on post Sarah Palin on Oprah: I Prefer The Makeover Shows, I Think
addresses
exactly what
you said on post Sarah Palin on Oprah: I Prefer The Makeover Shows, I Think
What are the nasty
habits a on post Girls Gone Wild - 5 Nasty Habits Women Pick Up because They’re in a Relationship
habits a on post Girls Gone Wild - 5 Nasty Habits Women Pick Up because They’re in a Relationship
BlogHer Conferences
- Home
- About Us
- BlogHer Community
- Conferences
- BlogHer Network
- Special Offers
- Contact Us
Follow us on Twitter:
@blogher @bloghersupport @blogherdeals
Become a Facebook Fan
© Copyright 2009 BlogHer | Terms of Service
Comments
More, I want MORE!!
I love the tracks you have included so far, but I would LOVE to see a track on travel. There are so many really wonderful travel blogs by women (including your own Contributing Editor Pam of Nerd's Eye View) that are offering incredibly valuable advice for traveling all over the world, aimed specifically at women. In this day, I think it's more important than ever to be encouraging travel and getting individuals too see more of their own country and the world.
I did not pay for that comment
I did send my readers who asked about travel at BlogHer o9 to this post, but I swear, no money changed hands. And there was no coaching about what to say either. But what Toddie said!
Nerd's Eye View
Expand please
Does the travel topic fall under a "passion" that we haven't given the mic to? Or does it fall under "the business of you"? Or somewhere else entirely?
More details, please!
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
I would consider it an oft-requested Passion
topic
Personally, I consider this one of the topics that would fall under Passions. And I can tell you it is definitely an oft-requested one (which is why we had a Birds of a Feather meet-up for it this year.)
Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com
My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!
Passion. Absolutely.
There are lots of biz considerations related to travel, but not one blogger I know who's blogging travel isn't crazy passionate about the topic. Passion.
Nerd's Eye View
Placeblogging
This could probably fall under Passions (and tied with Travel), but it would be great to discuss placeblogging a bit
more. Sometimes it's the blogs that focus on a particular city or state that draw people to visit or used as a guide on things to see and do while in town.
A. L. Venable is a Random Citizen. She primarily writes at Dimple and a Smirk (dot) com and Our PDX Network.
Placeblogging
Placeblogging as travel guide - love it.
I also love Placeblogging as a local resource - news, information and buzz. I prefer reading local bloggers for news about places I'm living over the local online newspaper.
I'm a Placeblogging fan.
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
Definitely a great local resource!
My mother visited Portland for the first time last month. I blogged about it on Our PDX Network and got a lot of great ideas from fellow authors and the readers on places to take her. While we didn't do half of what was suggested, it's great to have that conversation as an online reference for others.
A. L. Venable is a Random Citizen. She primarily writes at Dimple and a Smirk (dot) com and Our PDX Network.
Placeblogging Rules
I'm lucky to live in a neighborhood with a devoted micro-blogger, she knows everything about what's going on in our hood and is becoming quite the local celeb for her work on the blog - which she does with her husband and son as a full time job! They RULE. I got to hear her speak recently about what they do and how they do it, how they got from being a tiny anonymous neighborhood blog to the well respected source for hyperlocal news that they are today. Passionate placebloggers are fantastic partners with travel because they provide such great local information, but they're not a complete overlap because, in our neighborhood example, they're very newsy, which isn't totally travel related. But the broader city blogs (Seattlest, Metroblogging Seattle) are also placebloggers AND very relevant for travel because they cover so much pop culture and event stuff.
Anyway, yes. Place. I'm down with the placebloggers! Major props to them!
Nerd's Eye View
In my next life...
I would really really like to be a placeblogger. I'd like to do it now but I have two things stopping me 1) I have no time to do it 2) I'm such a homebody that I couldn't do it the way I feel like I'd want it done.
Blah!
~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager
Flamingo House Happenings
Travel/Place bloggers as local ambassadors
and even revitalizers
When we were going to be in NOLA this month I was thinking about having a session about how travelbloggers could contribute to the restoration and revitalization of NOLA via their blogging.
Do you think that could apply to other parts of the country and world?
Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com
My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!
Travel/Activism
During Blog Action Day a lot of the bloggers I read used the opportunity to promote causes for places they'd been. I wasn't the only one to talk about Cambodia and to suggest giving to causes that alleviate poverty there.
I haven't looked at NOLA specifically, but travellers are often eloquent voices for why you should visit places that were touristy but haven't fared so well, either because of politics or nature. After the Bali bombings there were a lot of calls to go back to Bali, after the tsunami, many travelers suggested SE Asia as a good place to spend your money, etc.
In short, yes.
Nerd's Eye View
Me Too
In Seattle, we have the most wonderful place blogger named Tracy Record. She blogs about the West Seattle neighborhood at the West Seattle Blog. This blog provides a lot of local coverage about our neighborhood that wouldn't normally be picked up by mainstream media - design review meetings, petty crime trends, etc. It's a huge resource that I read everyday and it's been great to see Tracy get to the point of becoming self-sustaining based on her advertising revenue.
It's a model that I think will be seeing more of and I think Tracy would be a great resource for fledgling place bloggers.
Giyen
Bacon Is My Enemy
Ps. I love Nerd's Eye View too and no I am not paid to say that. : )
YAY!
BlogHer '09! ;)
Love the idea of the Geek Lab expanding...
But just want to make sure we have 'real' experts for these sessions. I sometimes felt that the audience was too advanced for what the panel was covering.
BlogHer made me see just how web savvy women are today.
For Mommy Blogging I would like to see topics covering the continuing evolution of it...commercially and personally. Do we change our blogs as our kids get older or our lives change...does our audience change? Do we care? Also maybe talk more about 'niche' blogging in the mommy world...review blogs, parenting advice, loss, adoption..etc.
I do worry about the negativity from non mom bloggers that seemed to be around BlogHer.....We ain't taking over!
Look for me at http://crunchycarpets.com or check out the ladies at www.wetcoastwomen.com
You saw this one coming from a mile away...
How about ladies blogging about sports?
Or sports and other areas not typically covered by women.
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Sports and Fitness
Sarah and the Goon Squad
Draft Day Suit
sportsblogging!
Sarah and I have been talking about this via e-mail, so it's probably not surprising that I'm jumping in here to second her motion. :-)
Sportsblogging yes!
I might go to BlogHer if there were a track on sportsblogging. There are a LOT of us who play and blog or watch and blog. Thirding the motion.
--megan
http://www.librarygrrrl.net/
I'm Going To Be Radical Here
I'm going to be radical here, and nothing against the Mommybloggers, but how about a track for Non-Mommybloggers? Something that covers sports, entertainment, travel, etc that are not Mom-centric per se. What's it like for bloggers who aren't Mommybloggers in what appears to be a Mommyblogger world? How do Non-Mommybloggers need to market themselves differently than Mommybloggers?
The business track should also include blogging for free or not, and what do bloggers really get paid, with an eye toward giving more women bloggers the tools to ask for more money and get it. There was a big response to Heather's post and I think that would be very helpful for many bloggers.
Blogging and Journalism, is there a difference? Should there be?
Though I wasn't around when the BOF sessions were held at lunch, I would prefer that they go back to being held at lunch. If held during lunch, you're less likely to miss something you might otherwise really want to go to.
I think the Geek Lab needs to be specifically scheduled so that the beginners are there from say 10-11, the advanced from 11-Noon, and so on. And there should be a maximum of people signed up for each lab. Ideally, there should be one Geek to no more than five or six blogger students at a time.
Megan
Megan Smith
BlogHer CE, TV/Online Video
My Personal Blog: Megan's Minute
Megan - I'm hoping we can expand.
We did the "blogging without kids" panel last year and it was a good start but it's a topic worth revisiting...
I hope someone picks it up this year. Sports, entertainment, travel topics tend to appeal to anyone, with kids or not, so I don't (just my opinion) see a need to split those out, but I do like your last two ideas in that paragraph. The panel touched on the "what's it like to be a non-mommyblogger" part but not so much the marketing. I don't think there's an easy answer there...and therein lies a post I've been thinking about for far too long and should probably get to. :)
Laurie
expanding that idea
As my kids are all grown, I attended the blogging without kids this year and wish it would have been expanded. It could be a track on it's own definately.
Ditto on Non-Mommybloggers
Laurie: You were great on the blogging without kids panel. Found your comments very insightful.
I'm with Megan and Laurie. Let's not forget there are many women who for a variety of reasons don't or can't have children. Would hope that I'm not forced to walk through what amounted to a mommy tradeshow to reach the ballroom again next year. It was not only off-putting, the message was if you're not a mom, you don't rate.
We're not as vocal as the mommybloggers, but we have an important voice and point of view to share as well.
Pamela Jeanne
http://www.Coming2Terms.com
Yes, but four out of five tracks...
Are specifically not about MommyBlogging. I think you're looking at it from a glass 20% empty instead of 80% full perspective :)
Also, just to make sure everyone thinks about the *down* side of going back to lunch BOFs...it does mean you're less able to attend multiple ones. This year by having them throughout the day as sessions, if community meet-ups were really your thing more than sessions, you could visit a bunch of different Birds of a Feather groups. When they're all done at one time, you tend to visit one and stick. Nothing wrong with that, but did want to point out that's the other side of the coin on that structure.
Thanks for the thoughts on Geek Lab, it will probably be the most complex part of this to figure out.
Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com
My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!
I Get What You're Saying
I get what you're saying about the four out of five tracks being Non-Mommy blogging, I guess I just feel that we might need more than one session that focuses on the challenges Non-Mommy bloggers might have marketing their sites, getting advertisers, exploring topics to write about and connecting with each other.
I also realize that sponsorship-wise an advertiser is an advertiser and if the advertisers going after the Mommy blogger dollar are the people willing to help sponsor BlogHer '09, well, by gosh, I'll call myself a Mommyblogger for the day.
By the way, the women in my Women of Color meet-up had suggested a session along the Mommyblogger track that dealt with raising a multicultural child and possibly one about teaching children about racism and sexism. Someone from the Anti-Racist Parent might be a good speaker for that one.
And I too would love to see more with the travel bloggers.
All in all, I know it's a tough balancing act, but I appreciate that BlogHer is the kind of place where inclusion is an important goal.
And on a totally different topic, can someone give me a standard spelling of Mommy blogger? I think I've spelled it six different ways in just this thread alone.
Megan
Megan Smith
BlogHer CE, TV/Online Video
My Personal Blog: Megan's Minute
I like how to Market the Non-Mommyblog
I like the idea on how to market the nonMommyblog because it's difficult to get attention when a blog doesn't mention children. This topic will work for any blogger who doens't have a personal blog, such as the travel, green, geek, home & graden bloggers etc.
I'd also like to see the Birds of a Feather meetups scheduled to happen at a time other than during sessions. Several times I looked at the schedule and there were BOF and informative sessions that conflicted. And one of the reasons that I'd go to BlogHer is to not only get new info on blogging but to network with other women who blog in my niche.
Why don't decorating and DIY projects always work out like they do on TV? Condo Blues http://condo-blues.blogspot.com/
Capress green contributer - Sustainable Syle http://www.capessa.com
Ideas
I just joined...like a minute ago. So, considering that, I don't know what you've done in the past. I would like to suggest within the identity/passions that you kick off the session with a discussion about finding your true calling/passion in life and a little advice on how to identify with what makes you truly happy...you know the whole do what you know and follow your bliss deal. I am proof that following your life's calling is satisfying. I have always tried to listen to that inner voice that leads me down alternative paths that allow me to grow and develop as a person and as a woman in today's world. There are many professionals, I'm sure, that would be a great choice to open the session with a speech about just that.
Thanks...look forward to being a part of the Blogher community!
TR Hughes
http://www.guidetolifeforwomen.blogspot.com
Community building
I envision Melissa of Stirrup Queens leading a session on what happens when you set out to meet a need of a community rather than setting out to become a big blog.
I am intrigued when she says that she simply imagines what she'd like to see and then she makes it happen. Over and over again, she does this, without worrying about SEO or what the blog "experts" say.
She builds it, and we come.
Lori
Weebles Wobblog (http://weebleswobblog.blogspot.com)
Drama 2B Mama (http://drama2bmama.blogspot.com)
All Thumbs Reviews (http://allthumbsreviews.blogspot.com)
Oh yes community building AND building a
community blog
reaching out....technology.....etc.
Look for me at http://crunchycarpets.com or check out the ladies at www.wetcoastwomen.com
IDEAS - SCIENCE / RESEARCH-related Blogging
Okay, I know the techinical mumbo jumbo may scare some off at first, but many of us would love more science/research-related blogging. It really can be fun, should be fun, to read about the latest developments from the hard sciences, and yes, the softer ones! Blogging on parenting/child health, I feel passionately about teaching parents to evaluate the latest findings themselves, separating the good from the bad, and deciding whether it has any real-world significance. And there's lots of information and misinformation on line. Plenty of room for more expert opinions. This past year alone has produced much fodder - the safety of bisphenol-a and kiddie cough and cold meds, the continuing research on autism, the benefits of breastfeeding, etc. Parents crave information- expert, objective information. No reason it can't be explained in a chatty, non-technical voice. Judging from the popularity of Tara Parker Pope's Wellness Blog over at the New York Times, people welcome a discussion, a down-to-earth one, of scientific evidence. And there are excellent female bloggers doing just that - though I'd guess they don't get that much exposure and there's really very little platform out there for them or any female science types. More than men, we women tend to relate the scientific to our own lives, our own experiences, bringing the lab home so to speak. Whether we're talking about the environment, reproductive health, or pediatrics, it's a huge missed opportunity on line - would love to see more.
Dr. Polly, that's interesting because...
...we've been mulling over ideas like: How to find and share reliable information online. How can a layperson sift through the overwhelming amounts of info, let's take just health as one example, and figure out who/what to believe?
Thanks for the idea.
Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com
My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!