Announcing the BlogHer Food '12 Call for Ideas

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Last month, Elisa announced our fourth annual BlogHer Food Conference, coming up June 8-9, 2012. We were also thrilled to tell you that we were taking the show from Atlanta in the Southeast clear up to Seattle in the Northwest. Many of you seemed as excited about that as we are, so you should probably register soon. Tickets are going fast, and every year the event has sold out.

Today we're announcing our Call for Ideas for programming for BlogHer Food '12, open until

December 21, 2011.

BlogHer conferences are considered "the conference the community built" for good reason: your input on the programming is the fundamental building block of every conference. We encourage you to submit yourself to speak on a panel of your own devising, but we are also interested in having you submit your wish list of other speakers, or even just topics you think someoneshould be talking about.

BlogHer's COO Elisa Camahort Page, our Conference Programming Manager Jes Ferris, and I will gather, julienne, marinate upon and ultimately plate this year's offerings with the yeoman assistance of:

The BlogHer Food '12 Conference Advisory Committee

Alice Currah, of Savory Sweet Life (and a Seattle local!)
Asata Reid, of Life Chef
Diana Johnson, of Dianasaur Dishes (also from the Seattle area!)
Diane Cu, of White on Rice Couple
Elaine Wu, from BlogHer and VirgoBlue
Genie Gratto, BlogHer's Food Section Editor and The Inadvertent Gardener
Julie Ross Godar of BlogHer
Keren Brown of Frantic Foodie (also in the Seattle area!)
Sean Timberlake from Hedonia and Punk Domestics

What Will the Conference Tracks Be?

Please submit panel ideas that could fit into one of the following tracks:

Values, e.g. food politics, food policy or social change via food blogs
Visuals, e.g. photography, video, design, multimedia, styling
Vocation, e.g. skills development, best practices, traffic building, monetization, ethics, publishing
Voice, e.g. writing skills, storytelling, inspiration
Vittles, e.g. cooking skills, cooking techniques, tools, recipe development

What exactly can you submit?

As noted above, you can submit panels you want to attend, panels you want to speak on and speakers you want to see. In addition, we are always looking for very strong moderators to lead panels. Moderators have that extra job of keeping sessions on track and ring-leading the conversation to include everyone on the panel and everyone in the audience. It can be a bit of a special skill, so we're very interested in folks who have experience in that!

How to Submit

Whether you've had something simmering on the back burner for a long time, or have just cooked an idea up (fully baked or half!), kindly use this submission form to send us your idea. The form will ask for contact information, plus other supporting information such as:

whether you're offering yourself up (speaker or moderator or either on a specific panel), or recommending a speaker or session idea you'd love to see
if it's a recommendation, why you'd like to hear a given speaker, plus their URL/contact info if you have it
if it's a panel proposal, its track (Values, Visuals, Vittles, Vocation, or Voice)
your panel's level, if applicable (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
URLs to support your submission
the panel's title and brief description
three practical "takeaways" the session will offer attendees

What's the Timeline?

Our programming schedule is:

November 21, 2011: Call for Ideas open
December 21, 2011: Call for Ideas closed
February 1, 2012: All submitters contacted either way, and programming published

To stir the pot of ideas, check out the agendas for BlogHer Food in 2011 and 2010 to see what folks have been talking about.

Thanks in advance for offering to share your creativity and skills with your fellow food blogging community at BlogHer Food '12 this coming June. When Marge Simpson becomes a food blogger, it's safe to say the lid has blown off the food blogging pot. Now you have even less excuse not to join in the fun! (Here's the Call for Ideas form once again.)

With relish,

Polly