Gamer. For most people that conjures up an image of a geeky teenage boy sitting in his room in his parents' house talking on a headset to other geek friends who have no lives. I am here to tell you: That is so 1990! Today gamers are teenagers, men and, yes, women. In fact, women who game are quickly becoming more mainstream. We have slammed open the doors to the gaming world and we are storming the gates. (Or in gamer speak: When you get pwned, there is a good chance it was a woman who pwned you.)

While thousands of women Bloggers assembled in San Francisco for the BlogHer '08 Convention this weekend, Second Life BlogHers had plenty of chances to hang out inworld at the BlogHer conference in Second Life!

My son is taking driver's training lessons right now. This would not be anything exciting for most mother's however, my son is thirty-five, got his driver's license when he was 16, had a car accident in 2005 which resulted in paraplegia and is learning to drive again with hand controls! I am so excited, worried and proud of his desire to get right back into life and have his freedom back and participate in life more fully.

I admit it: I've been flirting with the idea of going back into Second Life. My last visit to the virtual world was more than a year ago, and I was frustrated by the interface, even after spending 15-20 hours "in world." What can I say? I'm an awkward avatar. But the buzz around Second Life at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) conference earlier this week was too strong to ignore, particularly surrounding Sarah "Intellagirl" Robbins's presentation. Back when I was dissertating, one of my favor ways of procrastinating on writing the damn thing was to print out articles related to my topic, and to surf the web for advice on dissertation-writing and procrastination. So it's only been natural for me to research Second Life in much the same way: before actually going into SL, I've been poking around the web for advice on how to best navigate SL. Along the way, I stumbled upon some innovative uses of Second Life in K-20 education.

It's been an interesting week so far, and it's only Tuesday! Yesterday, I met with organizers of the Rez the Vote, a grass-roots campaign in Second Life intended to get Americans registered to vote in real life. Tomorrow, I'm spending the day at MIT's Center for Future Civic Media, where the people responsible or some of the best ideas in communications technology over the last quarter-century have gathered to consider new tools for promoting citizen engagement.

I had the pleasure of attending the Second Life Conference and Convention in Chicago this past weekend as a guest of Campfire Media, Atomic Bombast and Mug Wildung, and Pontiac's Motorati Island. I was joined by Suku Ming, owner of the SLASCAR race track who shared with me 50% of all the racers on her track are women SL residents, in fact the #1 racer on the SLASCAR track is a woman avatar.

I think it is safe to say you liked the Second Life version of BlogHer '07. 514 is my new favorite number. I'll explain why shortly. When I brought the idea to Elisa, Lisa, and Jory a few months ago, we agreed the virtual BlogHer was an experiment. The idea was to offer bloghers unable to travel to Illinois a way to attend and be a part of the conference. We were not sure how many of you would "attend" and in all honesty, we were not sure how it would all turn out. I'm not normally a numbers person (or avatar) but in this case, I'm making an exception for some amazing stats:

At 10:30 Chicago time (8:30 SLT), I'll be moderating a panel on Covering the News in Second Life with a fascinating and eclectic group of speakers. Journalism is a burgeoning activity in Second Life, which has become a growing source of hard news and controversy and real-world consequences.

Live coverage will begin at 1045 Central TIME. Come check us out at http://slcn.tv

The schedule http://www.blogher.com/node/22273 is set. The panelists in place. The exhibitors ready. The teleports placed. Our table up on the stage even has bottled water, sparkling and still, of course. We're ready for your avatar to join us for BlogHer '07 in Second Life.