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Have you heard of Gina McCauley? If you haven't, listen up--this is a woman who's on the cutting edge of the internet and social media and you need to get to know her right now. If you do know who she is, read the following interview anyway, because I defy you not to be inspired by her story, her passion and her good old fashioned smarts. Just the kind of black woman the MSM almost never talks about.
Gina's the outspoken publisher of the blogs What About Our Daughters and Michelle Obama Watch, and she's also the organizer of the blogging conference for people of color, Blogging While Brown. After attending last weekend's successful 2nd annual conference, I had some questions for Gina and she was kind enough to make time to answer them for me.
What did you hope to achieve with this year's conference and do you feel you accomplished what you set out to do?
My goal was to bring people together so that they could meet other people, learn something new and have a good time. My hope before the conference that people would develop relationships with others they could partner with and collaborate. I think we definitely accomplished that. I was afraid that we couldn't replicated the amazing "vibe" from last year, and we didn't. The "vibe" this year was even better than the vibe int he room from last year. People genuinely liked each other, were excited for each other, encouraged each other and enjoyed each other's company to the point that they would leave :)
On the way out the door, three women who live in Chicago who didn't know each other before they came to the conference and attended the bootcamp and conference said they were going to collaborate together and start a group blog. That's so important because blogging can be a very solitary experience. Blogging While Brown makes blogging a family experience. You know you're part of this loud lovely group that loves to get together and chat.
How was this year's conference different than last year's?
First, we added the beginning blogger bootcamp and I think its fair to say that was an overwhelming success. We got raves about that, and we'll be expanding our "nuts & bolts" training next year. We had a really small class that met before the conference began. They got each other. I think it was less intimidating when the entire conference convened because they already had their bootcamp friends. My goal was to take civilians and turn them into lean mean blogging and podcasting machines and we did that.
We clearly had more people this year. We eliminated Sunday morning events, which I think is wise :) We had all conference events in the same location. I actually did very little organizing this year because I delegated logistics to our conference coordinator, Shalon and programming to Shawn P Williams from the Dallas South Blog and literally the conference was able to take without me. I arrived to both the kick reception and the Saturday workshops after they had started and they in full swing without me. So that means from a delegation standpoint, it was successful because I had a good team who made sure the conference could take place without me... AND we had power outlets EVERY WHERE this year! That was something we learned from last year when we blew the convention center power grid during the conference.
Your blog What About Our Daughters is very focused on speaking up about issues relating to women of color in a blunt and unapologetic way. I love that. But at the same time there are people in the black community who would say, you shouldn't be putting our "dirty laundry" out there for all the world to see. What do you say to that?
I don't what those people think! The cost of silence is too high. You're not going to march the community over the side of a cliff while I quietly watch. Another blogger once said, I forget who, that when you hear someone fret over "dirty laundry" being "aired" that you have to wonder how many loads they've washed. I started blogging because I think the very survival of young Black women is at stake. Live free or die. Folks are worried about bad PR with blood running in the streets.
We're seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted, being
