Today we are excited to get started on BlogHer '10 programming by announcing our annual call for ideas!

This post will describe:

1. What is the BlogHer '10 programming timeline?
2. What is the difference between BlogHer-programmed sessions and Room of Your Own sessions and how both are scheduled?
3. What is our call for ideas and what kind of suggestions are we looking for?
4. How do I send in my suggestions?

Here goes:

1. What is the BlogHer '10 programming timeline?

Here is our basic timeline for choosing and publishing the BlogHer '10 publishing schedule:

10/29/09-11/30/09: Call for ideas is open
by 01/11/10: Skeleton schedule of BlogHer-programmed sessions is published
01/11/10-02/15/10: Room of Your Own suggestion and voting period is open
03/15/10: Final programming schedule, including Room of Your Own sessions, published

2. What is the difference between BlogHer-programmed sessions and Room of Your Own sessions and how both are scheduled?

Short answer: BlogHer sessions are created from the first round of community suggestions. Room of Your Own sessions are created from the second round of community suggestions.

Long answer: Here's how it works: BlogHer sessions are created from the first round of community suggestions. During the first phase of planning programming, we'll receive all of your session and speaker ideas and synthesize them into panels. We often receive similar ideas for panels. Or we look for people who have different viewpoints on a topic and figure out how to schedule that debate to happen at the conference. We also seek out other voices that deserve to be heard from across the blogosphere. Every year at least 80 percent of the speakers in BlgoHer-programmed sessions at BlogHer's Annual Conference are new to speaking at BlogHer. It's our goal to seek out fresh voices...and that means, especially if you haven't spoken at a BlogHer conference before, we encourage you to submit your ideas and own your expertise. It's part of our mission to create opportunities for women who blog, and speaking at a conference is a wonderful opportunity.

Room of Your Own sessions are created from the second round of community suggestions. The second phase of planning programming will be the Room of Your Own suggestion and voting period. Read our original definition of the Room of Your Own concept here. The Room of Your Own sessions represent an opportunity for conference attendees to:

- Fill in the programming holes you think we left when we published our schedule
- Volunteer to contribute to the conference in a very active way
- Make the conference experience your own

We've integrated the Room of Your Own sessions in different ways over the years. This year, we are going to leave two slots open in every one of the six tracks listed below when we publish our initial schedule by 12/31/09. We will ask for Room of Your Own suggestions to fall into one of those tracks, and we select two Room of Your Own suggestions per track, or 12 in total. As always, these sessions will be chosen based on community interest and diversity that they bring to the schedule.

3. What is our call for ideas and what kind of suggestions are we looking for?

If you're new to BlogHer, you might wonder why we call this 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 necessarily speak on. And we're are all for that...any idea is welcomed, collected and reviewed by real, live humans :)

We are specifically looking for sessions and speaker ideas, suggestions and proposals that would fall into one of the following six programming tracks:

Personal Identity: 55% of BlogHer '09's attendees said that they blogged, simply, about "Life". This is the track to explore your life, your identity, your blogging. This is the track where we'll talk about who we are and reveal ourselves to be on our blogs, how that identity informs our blogging, and how our blogging transforms who we are. In the past we've covered what it's really like to blog about our hopes and dreams, our privacy, our fears, our tragedies, our most sensitive issues -- such as our gender, our race, our sexual orientation. How does it affect us inside? How does it impact our offline friends and families?

Passions: This is the track to dig into the passions that fuel so much of our blogging. In the past we've covered FoodBlogging, CraftBlogging, KnitBlogging, TravelBlogging, and we know there are many other subjects out there. What are the subjects we've covered that we could have dug into deeper? What are the passions we've yet to spotlight? Let us know.

Professional Blogging: So many bloggers are treating the personal platform of blogging as a professional platform too, and this track will explore how to blog wisely and well. Yes, this is where the monetization subject will live, but we can also discuss ethics, contracts...even your taxes. Practical advice from bloggers who are making the most of their blogs is highly sought after. And remembering that most of us make more money and achieve more because of our blogs (not with our blogs) is important too!

Change Agents: Politics, activism, social causes, social change. Last year we learned specific skills to help us raise our voices. And then we saw how some bloggers are putting those skills into action with a series of inspiring case studies, both international and domestic. This is track to talk about what you are doing to change the world. On any kind of scale. Locally. Nationally. Globally. It's also the track to talk about what we could be doing to change the world.

Writing Lab: Let's talk about writing. If you're like most bloggers, half of what's up on your screen is words. Content still is queen in our books, so we're looking for professional-grade writing instructors and coaches. But the other half of what's on your screen is all about design and usability. How do you provide the best showcase for your amazing words?

Geek Lab: The Geek Lab is BlogHer's Technical Track. We want content for all levels, beginning, intermediate and advanced. What do you want to learn? What do you have to teach? How deeply geeky do you want to get?

4. How do I send in my suggestions?

Those are the tracks, so if that triggers some great ideas, then this year please visit our BlogHer '10 Call For Ideas Submission Form and fill it in, in as much detail as you want.

Just remember: We are as happy to receive suggestions about sessions you'd like to attend, and speakers you'd like to hear from, as we are to hear about why you want to rock the mic.

We're open to get your ideas starting now, and you have one month to do so. OK, lay those great ideas on us, starting...now!!!