Can I go to more than one?

Sarah — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:20:38 -0500

I'm want to follow BlogHer around like a dead head.

Sarah

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Sports and Fitness
Sarah and the Goon Squad
Draft Day Suit

Road trip! Announcing BlogHer's 2008 conference schedule and tour

Lisa Stone — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:59:19 -0500

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September 27, 2007

Hi everyone,

We're all jumping around the good ship BlogHer today, excited about this morning's announcement of the BlogHer 2008 Conference Schedule.

Here's the short version, ready? GO!

New York
San Francisco
Boston
Washington D.C.
Greensboro
Nashville
Atlanta
New Orleans

YAY!

But I do think my co-founder Elisa Camahort explains our annual event, business conference and bus tour better than I. Here's her post, based on the open conference call we did with some of you this morning:

Elisa's post begins

Today we are proud to announce our entire 2008 schedule of events, centered around one unifying theme: Reach!

BlogHer in 2008 will include a second annual BlogHer Business, the fourth annual BlogHer Conference and the introduction of a brand new BlogHer event: The BlogHer Reach Out Tour. The BlogHer Reach Out Tour will stop at 6 cities on the East Coast and across the South. Yup, we're growing from 2 events in 2007 to 8 events in 2008!

Read on to get the details on all of these events. And stay tuned, as we plan to launch a new conference web site and registration for our 2008 schedule of events on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Monday November 26th.

Now, let's dig in...

BlogHer brings BlogHer Business back to NYC this April!

After last year's inaugural and very successful BlogHer Business we are returning to the scene of the crime. We'll be at the Affinia Manhattan again, this time for two full days of case studies, networking, expert consulting and perhaps an ice sculpture or two.

What: BlogHer Business '08
When: April 3-4, 2008
Where: The Affinia Manhattan

Last year we had an amazing line-up of speakers including the women behind the corporate blogging efforts at Google, Yahoo!, Cisco and Wells Fargo, the women who run such media outlets as the Washington Post.com/Newsweek Interactive, iVillage and Redbook Magazine, and women who are technical experts at everything from blogging software applications to traffic building, monitoring and measurement.

The Venue: The Affinia Manhattan

Conveniently located near Penn Station, The Affinia Manhattan is an all-suite hotel that treated BlogHer and its attendees very well last year. We will have a room block available with rooms at $279/night and complimentary in-room internet (regularly $10/day) for all BlogHer attendees. This year we're expanding our programming to start in the morning on Thursday April 3rd, so you might think about coming in the night before.

On Friday night, April 4th, after the conference closes we will host a meet-up for the New York blogging community.

As an extra carrot, please check out the Blogger Social that prominent NYC business blogger CK (aka Christina Kerley) is co-organizing. If she gets enough sign-ups by November 15th the Blogger Social is on, and we may be able to join forces with them for one powerful closing night party!

The Affinia will be putting up a BlogHer online reservation page soon, and registration for BlogHer Business will open on November 26th. Look for tiered pricing that lets bloggers and independent consultants attend alongside representatives from larger corporations. It's that kind of cross-pollination that enhances the quality of the learning and the conversation for all attendees!

BlogHer '08 comes back to the Bay Area!

The community push to bring BlogHer back West was pretty powerful, and when combined with better affordability and better weather...well, that's a hard combo to beat.

What: BlogHer '08
When: July 18-20, 2008
Where: The Westin St. Francis Hotel on Union Square

We will follow the same basic schedule as this year's BlogHer, with a 2-day conference followed by an Unconference on day 3. Some changes you can look for in response to attendee feedback: a mixer the night before the conference for first-time BlogHer attendees, more time for networking and free-form connection during the conference...and bigger break-out rooms! We plan to continue to be the blogging conference that features every facet of blogging, from the intimately personal to the intensely political to the purely professional.

The Venue: The Westin St. Francis on Union Square

Right on Union Square in San Francisco, it is hard to beat the Westin St. Francis for charm and convenience. With rooms available in both the historic St. Francis wing and the modern Westin wing, there's something for everyone. And believe it or not, my Senior Ball happened in the St. Francis Grand Ballroom...so there's that :) The Westin St. Francis is excited to have BlogHers and their laptops there, so they brought their room rate down to $199/night, and they too are comping the daily in-room Internet charge for all BlogHer attendees (regularly $16.95/day.)

The Westin St. Francis will also have an online reservation interface for BlogHer attendees, which should be up soon, even before conference registration opens on November 26th. Look for us to continue to offer highly subsidized registration fees for the annual conference to improve accessibility.

Introducing the BlogHer Reach Out Tour

There was also strong interest in bringing BlogHer to many other cities across the United States, and in order to bring BlogHer closer to some of its members who simply can't make it to our annual event, we decided to come to a city near you!

That's right, we're going on tour. Kicking off is the runner up annual location, Boston. We'll then move on to Washington, DC, Greensboro, NC, Nashville, TN, Atlanta, GA and close in New Orleans, LA. BlogHer will host one-day conferences in each city that will offer sessions to encourage new bloggers to get on board, plus content tailored to each tour city community, its interests and its local bloggers. (And yes, we're already putting our heads together with venerable ConvergeSouth organizer Sue Polinsky in Greensboro!)

Why go on tour? Other than the prospect of spending two weeks on a bus with Jory, Lisa, Kristy and potentially other BlogHers, we couldn't pass up the chance to prove that great blogging is happening all over, and about every topic under the sun.

If you're in one of our Reach Out Tour cities and know of great bloggers and blogging going on there, start tagging your posts BlogHer [CityName], so we can start adding you to our list. We'll be announcing specific dates and venues for each city as we get them.

Consider us open for ideas, suggestions, volunteerism, speakers and sponsors.

Contact Elisa if you are or know a great speaker or unplumbed topic...particularly in the cities on our Reach Out Tour.

Contact Jory if you are or know a company that would like to support the endeavors of women bloggers by sponsoring one or more BlogHer events.

Contact Lisa if you have ideas about how to connect BlogHers on BlogHer.com or across all of our sites...after all great initiatives like BlogMe and the Great BlogHer Photo Scavenger Hunt came right from BlogHer members.

Contact Kristy if you are interested in volunteering in any capacity, particularly in one of our six Reach out Tour cities.

BlogHer in 2008. We hope we reach more of you than ever before with these eight events.

End of Elisa's post

Isn't this exciting? We'd love to know what you think. I'm going to close the comments on this newsletter -- please join our discussion on Elisa's announcement post here.

Best,
Lisa

for Elisa, Jory and Lisa

Lisa Stone is a BlogHer Co-founder. Her personal blog is Surfette.. She promises NOT to write about body image issues next week.

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BlogHer - Road trip! Announcing BlogHer's 2008 conference schedule and tour - Comments

Can I go to more than one?

Road trip! Announcing BlogHer's 2008 conference schedule and tour