Many have asked me How was Foo? (including here). This post is my best attempt to answer the question…
I’ve included a number of details to help describe what it was like and to help others who may be planning similiar ideas…
The invitation I received to Foo Camp was a gift. As danah boyd described in her post, it’s a privilege to be there. I like danah’s explanation of her choice to go to Foo. I had mixed feelings about it, sorry and understanding that others were hurt when they weren’t invited, cautious to mention I had chosen to go. I wanted to go to Foo, to participate in the community, to give my “Making Masks” presentation, to listen and to learn from everyone there.
Running away together for the weekend
Since Ted also happened to get an invitation it made for a fun excuse to run away together. I wish I had captured a picture of us rolling our suitcases down the sidewalk on the way to the bus [before the ferry and airport etc..] Friday morning. It’s an unusual sight! At first neighbors who saw us offered us a ride, and then they realized we were going away without our kids…which led to the opportunity to make a joke or two…
Come early, stay late
Foo Camp is located at the O’Reilly offices in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California which is far enough north of SFO to make traffic a serious consideration especially on a Friday. The O’Reilly instructions recommended leaving San Francisco by 3 pm and that’s what Ted and I did, after flying into the city in the early afternoon. If I could I would have arrived sooner. The early birds get the worms and at Foo the early birds get the best sites for camping whether on the lawn or in the building (including offices with doors!) and best choice from the box of donated swag. I’d also recommend packing warm clothes. Despite the forecast of 80 degree weather, the evenings were particularly chilly and I was grateful I’d packed fleece (but sorry I’d missed the swag sweatshirts!). Packing a large towel from home is helpful too. And ear plugs were especially helpful, I heard, for those in the tents. I also later wished I had more time to stay but with babysitting a big factor in our family’s equation, I need to go home as soon as possible.
camping on the third floor at Foo: our romantic retreat!
Getting to know you
Friday night began with quick introductions around the packed room for all 200+ of us that were there. We were each allowed to say our name, affiliation and three words to describe ourselves. See David Weinberger’s list for some of these excellent three word combos. Using words that were distinctive helped to start conversations later. For example, one of Ted’s three words was “homeschooling” ( I think the other two were “Apache” and “Chandler”) and during the rest of the weekend, others would ask us about homeschooling. I chose “storytelling” and that too opened doors. I do wonder what happened to the guy whose three words were “baby due tomorrow” – [he then had to explain it was a scheduled induction]- we nearly all dragged him out the door and sent him home!
Find a slot!
Next came the sign up for sessions. Everyone is encouraged to bring a talk or discussion topic to share. Foo Campers move en masse [see Ted’s photo] towards enormous boards marked with grids outlining the schedule of the weekend: 140 sessions + total. At first it’s a bit of a free-for-all, with people grabbing pens and scribbling on squares, jostling among each other. This part was crazy. It was difficult to find a time slot that didn’t conflict with something else that seemed exciting or intriguing. I also wished the schedule had somehow been put online. The physical aspects of the board – later stationed in a covered walkway outside – including its height and width, made certain sessions and rooms easier to read and write than others. But somehow everyone finds a place to present. I ended up presenting my “Making Masks” talk twice, once in the morning and again at night, for those who missed the first time. Even after two performances, there were still people who told me they had wanted to see my talk. At Foo, there are always so many exciting sessions, it is difficult to choose just one or two to try to see in the hour!
Also, due to the number of options offered, many sessions averaged in attendance from 10 to 20 people, the size of a workshop. For my talk, I appreciated the intimate setting and the flexibility of schedule which allowed especially the evening version of “Masks” to continue in depth and dialogue. [here’s a picture and here is a kind review of the morning version]
Session highlights:
Open Source Biology lead by Drew Endy included discussions of optimizing the genome and also the difficulties of trying to collect royalties on self-replicating creations.
Do we want wheat in 2050 to be as good as Windows 98?
Take the genome of a natural biological system and optimize it
If you view biological systems as programs – 3.6 billion years old time for a rewrite
uncontrolled replication in the environment – royalies
make a replication machine – you have to give it away at that point.
If we screw up…can’t reboot….
Esther Dyson on space travel and personal health information
Next I stopped by Esther Dyson’s session which she split into two halves, one that focussed on space travel and the other on personal health care information. The end of the first topic included a dialogue on the ethics of space travel, whether it is selfish to want to “see the blue marble” as someone described it. Esther said:
0 G is probably safe. Going into space is not. The risk is worth taking. I want to go into space when I figure I’m kind of done on earth. I’d rather go that way than lung cancer…give my body to science or experimentation
We also discussed the problems of pollution with bits and atoms, environmentalism on the Web and in the physical world.
The portion on health care information ended up shorter than the space session. Esther Dyson advocated that we will have better health care and better health when consumers, people like you and me, can control our information. There was talk of various companies interested in this space, including Amway, which someone mentioned is marketing genetic tests and then subsequent health-related products under a different company name.
After my recent ER encounter and the following process in which it was made clear to me without being explicitly stated that I was in charge of coordinating my health care needs in a crisis, despite my physical pain and lack of knowledge [of my own body or the medical situation], I strongly believe in having access to my records.
Someone asked why he should be concerned about his health care information.
The immediate response from the group was “How old are you?”
Many told him that soon he would be concerned about his health care…as soon as he got older or had a crisis. [in around 3 to 4 years someone estimated!]
Suddenly I saw one result of the segregation that may exist in the technology community. With age, generally comes more health problems. Once you have a health problem it changes the way you view health care. Yet the technology crowd, from what I’ve seen, seems to be mostly on the younger end of the spectrum. Many whom I’ve met I’d guess are also on the wealthier end of the economic spectrum. And I also suspect that those who are at larger tech companies have better benefits and may be unaware – as Ted and I were – of the difficulties of finding and paying for insurance and health care in general. I thought of Ronni Bennett and her desire to educate others and document what it means to grow older – and her documentation of the inequities of age in our society. Here again is another gap where technology could help older people but can we make it work from both ends – could we help the older people use the technology for their empowerment and could we encourage younger people [perhaps in corporations but also via open source methods] to invest the time to build the structures [hardware, software and social] that are necessary?
Tricks for Writing Essays
After lunch I ended up sitting next to Paul Graham as he shared tips for writing essays. I wouldn’t say that I want to be a writer just like Paul Graham. If I were to write essays and books, they would be in a different niche from his and a different style. But I would like to be as provocative and innovative as he is. Ted and I have discussed some of his essays and I know Paul has influenced us both in our thoughts on creativity and parenting. He has wisdom and experience. I was grateful for the opportunity to learn from him. Here are some notes.
I used talks as a way of forcing myself to write essays
When you read stuff aloud you notice sentences that you stumble over them
I read all essays out loud
When you read them out loud multiple times, that helps you realize the boring slow bits
That’s one of the tricks. Use a lot of pronouns. Talk about something and then refer back to it.
Sentences are all linked together …that makes it fit.
part of what causes flames is lack of revision
the first time you write something down you often write it in too dramatic or assertive a way
you’re terribly offensive and you seem foolish
Paul explained how he responded to critiques and mentioned regrets. He also mentioned essays he hasn’t published for fear of other’s reactions, and topics he doesn’t write.
Creating Passionate Users 2
Kathy Sierra led a vibrant Creating Passionate Users session, focussing on the Koolaid point. Her blog began from a session at Foo Camp ’04. I’d read the notebook Ted brought home from Kathy’s OSCON tutorial and I’ve enjoyed learning from her. I wasn’t able to write specific quotes since my computer needed recharging. Kathy’s presentations are dynamic and fun. The discussion on what to do with Koolaid tension and cult-accusations featured excellent suggestions from others in the room. I wish we had had more time to continue the discussion and I also wish Kathy had had more time to present some of her material on the ways the mind learns and remembers. I’ll just have to wait for the Creating Passionate Users book coming out in 2006!
Identity 2.0
Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 talk was one I had to see, in part because I’m interested in identity but also in part because I was interested in his presentation style which had received Ted’s praise at OSCON. It’s fast and funny and accurate (too fast for me to take a good photo!). The kind of presentation that you have to keep watching so you won’t miss a word – literally! I saw smiles appearing on faces as he presented. Later I had opportunity to talk to Dick about the ways we change our identity with audience.
Howtoons
Sunday morning I enjoyed Howtoons, led by Saul Griffith. Howtoons are “Tools of Mass Construction”, a subversive science curriculum presented in cartoon form with materials that cost less than $1 an experiment so that kids can explore by themselves, on their own initiative.
”What is the set of skills that kids should not be allowed to survive childhood without?”
I hope that Howtoons creates a community component where others can share their creations. I can also see the potential for a club idea, where people could gather together once a week or once a month to do experiments together and show off, for example, their marshmallow shooters. [I want to make one of these!]. I’m also looking forward to the upcoming Howtoons books!
how to count in binary using fingers
Everyone interested in science education should take a look at Howtoons. Saul also mentioned this essay on I, Pencil which also makes for interesting reading.
“Women 2.0”
All three of the sessions I attended on Sunday addressed gender differences. And it was a contrast to attend Foo Camp three weeks after Blogher. It did seem masculine to me in culture at least at first. But Asa Doetzler commented in one session I attended that Foo had the largest percentage of women than other tech conferences he had attended in recent months. More women seemed to be at Foo in person than on the wiki pages.
The final session of Foo for me was on Women in Open Source, a discussion I was eager to hear since Ted had attended a similar panel at OSCON the week I went to Blogher. I was curious to see which problems were discussed and which solutions were proposed. In this group that was 75% female, three questions seemed to emerge:
1. What can we do about the social roles and the ways girls learn to encourage more women to end up in open source?
2. How can we support each other? (social-oriented)
3. What can we do now to help women in open source?(task/goal-oriented)
Agreement seemed to be that a goals should be concrete and anchored to something tangible. Also the research work of Maria Klawe at Princeton was mentioned. Mentoring was another way women could encourage other women although one woman said she had never gotten it to work.
What also seemed clear to me was that those women who are in Open Source are women who have survived the current system. Danese Cooper was the first woman interviewed by Slashdot – yet much of that Slashdot interview concerned how shaggable she was. In response to viscious emails, Danese said I just hit delete and I can do that for a long time. Other women mentioned that they feel more comfortable in a group of men than a group of women.
I suspect women who are already in Open Source have certain characteristics and experience. They’ve learned to survive viscious emails, sexist interviews and mostly-male communities. But what if many women don’t want to try to acclimate to that kind of culture? Women who are already in the Open Source community have insight. But I also believe that those who are just starting may have valuable insight too. How can we change the community or the situations so that different kinds of women – and others from diverse backgrounds – can succeed? As Alolita Sharma said, the same issues that inhibit women from being participatory are the same as newbies from developing countries.
My favorite quote of the session came from Larry Wall: They don’t understand this is Women 2.0.
if this is women 2.0, I’ll be curious to see women 3.0 and 4.0. In the Howtoons session, Saul Griffith shared gender observations. Apparently they have received numerous comments and criticisms from every side of the spectrum regarding the female character in howtoons, but none for the male. He also shared that 10 year old boys want to make skateboards fly while 10 year old girls say they want to read their friends’ dreams – a more complex and yet-unsolved problem in science. Saul also described the effect of a rocket making workshop on a group of girls – for an hour afterward, all the winner could do was talk about how she wanted to become a NASA engineer.
Homophily at Foo and elsewhere
danah boyd and David Weinberger together helped guide a discussion of homophily and community.
“Bless O’Reilly” danah said, appreciating Tim and his team’s efforts to put together a group of campers from different perspectives, technologies and experiences, trying to build bridges and learn from the conference themselves.
Foo camp received criticism for the fact that is is invitation-only. The acronym “Foo” stands for “Friends of O’Reilly” although Tim has now said he regrets the name, for it implies that those who are not invited are not friends. Of course, nearly all conferences have a limit of registrants, as dictated by the facilities. I can’t imagine Foo becoming much bigger than it is now.
I think it’s debatable which kind of conference could have more diversity: one that is self-selecting, allowing anyone to register, or one where a team such as Tim O’Reilly’s writes the list. Some conferences may only attract those who feel comfortable with those involved. Blogher surprised me with its array of new voices, encouraged by an advisory board of strong women. Yet I’m also convinced by Foo Camp that an invitation-only conference could also be an exciting cocktail mixed across communities, encouraging creativity.
In the session danah helped lead on homophily, we discussed silencing by collective action. Someone mentioned that we are diverse, but we have a quiet diversity. There are conservatives in the room and at the conference, for example, but they are not speaking. Even Paul Graham in his session (on essay writing, not the homophily session) mentioned he has essays he’s afraid to publish due to what others will think of him. We silence ourselves and we silence each other.
We make assumptions and broadcast them across the group, promoting an image of homophily and homogeneity. We all want to feel safe. We want to feel the same, at least in some sense. We want to belong. Yet we will each be ourselves only when we are free to be different and when we are accepted for who we are.
How can we help everyone find a voice so that creativity, innovation and diversity can occur? How can we engage totally different viewpoints? Tim O’Reilly has offered an example by his invitations bringing together people across disciplines and perspectives, people who might not ordinarily mix together. How can we expand the community and use what we’ve been given to help others? I was encouraged by Asa Doetzler’s sharing of his involvement in his community, with neighbors and others, hanging out with old friends who are non geeks and discovering what they need. I wish we had had more time for discussion but hope we can continue the dialogue through the decisions we make. I also hope to write more about my own application and experience later.
Forget to pack your ego
All communities, parties and conferences have their own psychology and sociology. The Foo invitation creates its own culture too. Some wonder – even out loud – why they were invited. It’s easy to feel intimidated or insecure when you recognize CEOs and other tech stars you’ve seen in magazines and books standing in line for ice cream sundaes next to you.
Awkward moments can occur when you try to make table conversation and ask the standard “What do you do?”. Sometimes the person sitting next to you drinking keg beer from a plastic cup is someone powerful and famous and then you feel stupid for not knowing who he was. And sometimes the person sitting next to you created an incredible invention yet you don’t know who she is or what it was she did, and feel stupid again.
I write all this only as advice [and as one description of the atmosphere at Foo]. While packing the sleeping bags and towels, leave the ego at home. This should be standard fare for all conferences anyway. Go prepared to meet new people, faces and voices you may or may not know, but all of them and each of them with something to share and something you can learn from them.
Perhaps instead of asking “What do you do?” or other similar inquisitions, instead try “What was the coolest thing you did this week?” as an opener (credit to danah boyd for the idea!).
Of course, the flip side of the invitation aspect is that everyone who is there got the same invite. No one is a speaker. No one keynotes. We are all the same. Whatever happens is whatever we make happen.
Someone mentioned that it was amazing to walk into the bathroom just as Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) was walking out. It is fun to be in a community without the usual hierarchy. We all eat the same food at the same tables and attend the same sessions. It’s a unique opportunity to create community and build relationships across the lines we sometimes draw within corporations or technologies or disciplines or even among ourselves. It’s a fun mix of people filled with interesting ideas and innovation, people who are willing to go on adventures, whether its a game of Werewolf or a genetic sequencing challenge.
It’s a great time to listen and learn, to give and receive. I was honored to meet many friendly people with whom I hope to stay connected, people I’ve been wanting to meet for a while. If I listed all the names it would be too many! Thanks to all of you!
breakfast foo
Tim O’Reilly and his team are giving this party, providing us all with tasty provisions and a place to camp, paying tens of thousands of dollars. It is sponsored by O’Reilly, some of the attendees have O’Reilly connections and some of the sessions concerned O’Reilly. Friday night I enjoyed seeing Tim O’Reilly present data on book sales, using various tools to track topics. I suspect it was an updated version of the one Tim Bray saw at the original Foo.
Family friendly
Foo was very family-friendly. Tim O’Reilly’s family was there; I thought that was cool. There were quite a few other couples there, besides Ted and me. And kids! Wee ones toddling around or babes carried in arms. This was the first conference I’ve attended where I’ve seen a mom nursing a baby. I noticed this because I’ve been waiting to see this for a while: when I was planning to attend my first conference, BloggerCon II, someone (a blogger and reader of this blog) also wanted to come and asked me whether anyone would be bringing along a breastfeeding baby. I was glad to see how family friendly Foo was. We missed our kids, especially after bringing them with us to Northern Voice and Gnomedex (thanks to those conferences for accommodating us!), but we were also able to participate better at Foo Camp by going alone as adults.
So as I was sitting on the airplane, coming home, I realized how many gifts I had gotten this weekend. My mother had babysat our kids, and then my brother and his girlfriend had come over to help my mom get somewhere on Sunday evening. There was the gift of the invitation from Tim O’Reilly and his team. The gifts of those who encouraged me and took the time to come to my session. Everyone who listened and gave to the discussions we enjoyed long after I’d finished my slides. The gifts of all those who led a session and put themselves and their work out for others to see. The many who helped me with my talk and have read this blog and helped me as a person. All gifts I didn’t expect. Even the gift of a weekend away enjoying a Sunday morning walk on a quiet trail in Sebastopol.
As Robert Scoble wrote, Thank you Tim for teaching us Foo camp life, for initiating the example and getting the idea going. This is all the beginning of many things, the start of a trail, a road into further adventures, as the success of Bar camp proved.
Note: Blogher was intense and so is this post. The more I read and thought, the more I knew it would be difficult to be concise. Many of the ideas are related to each other. I wish I could mind map it! So I’ve included many concepts and links in one post. Even this is not as thorough as it could be but I figured at this point I would put my Blogher thoughts together. I apologize for the length but hope what I’ve written helps explain what I’ve been considering and seeing…what’s been simmering inside me…to use the image of soup…
This is the best I can do to try to communicate what it was like to be at Blogher and what I’ve been thinking about it in the past two weeks. Sit down and have a bowl…enjoy!
Recipe for Blogher Bouillabaisse:
1. Gather 300 bloggers, 80% women, 50% fresh first-time blogging-conference attendees, in Santa Clara California for two days.
2. Begin the base and marinate ideas in the mind during travel and for days afterward.
3. Stir in dozens and dozens of post-conference posts
4. Simmer ten days
5. Serve!
I didn’t intend to wait ten days two weeks to post my reflections on the Blogher conference in Santa Clara, CA July 29 and 30 but the pace of life at our house has been hectic. Recent events with my own health have reminded me that I need to take care of myself, sleep and rest. Then again, waiting has also been helpful because I have been able to learn what others have been thinking. I have felt that my mind was full with thoughts, like a soup post simmering.
Resources
Before I begin, I want to link to the resources I’ve enjoyed while reading about the conference:
Each day I would discover what Technorati and Feedster had found.
Elisa Camahort’s blogher tagged delicious links: an excellent resource, thanks, Elisa!
Nancy White – start here or so and click around forwards and backwards for a while!
Beth Kanter – I’d been reading her blog and it was excellent to meet her at last – here’s her blogher category.
Lisa Williams – has been compiling awesome daily blogher posts, such as this one! Also on her OPML blog, such as July 30 and 31
Sour Duck – wrote thoughtful and provocative posts, including this one on anger
JD Lasica’s video interviews
Ponzi Covers Blogher podcasts: Part 1 and Part 2
Blogher blog
opening session and video
The power of do-o-cracy in creating community
As Elisa Camahort said in the San Francisco Chronicle article, this is a conference that the community built. I was impressed by the ways everyone came together. Hierarchy may be part of human nature, but as Blogher demonstrates, so are community, cooperation and collaboration. Although there were three organizers at the center (thanks to Elisa, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone), many gave. There are a number of ways, both big and small, where this attitude of do-o-cracy and community manifested itself in distinctive ways notable to me at my fifth blogging/technology conference. This was my fourth time speaking, but, I think perhaps one of the first times my badge did not say “Speaker” on it – all badges were the same. I loved the video that opened the conference, with quotes and screenshots from many different blogs! The “Room of Your Own” sessions were an excellent idea – anyone could come and start a discussion. I think too this is the first time I’ve come to a conference where the organizers sent out a survey asking everyone for ideas for next year. The discussion guidelines started by Ashley Richards are excellent and classic – I’ll use them again when I have opportunity! I appreciate the spirit of Blogher and hope it grows and spreads in strength and generosity.
Evangelism 101: if you want to build community, you need to start with a foundation that fits and add brick by brick
The amazing statistics for Blogher show that if you want women to come to a conference, you need to start with women. Those asking “Where are the women?” might begin instead by finding women to begin building the community. Of course, the community needs to be one where women – or other minority – feel welcome.
I imagine this is Evangelism 101. You can only expect those people to come to a community if they feel included. If they are part of the process from the ground level. Each of us felt we had a voice. We knew we could influence what happened. We belonged. We belonged to Blogher and Blogher belonged to us.
How do we build bridges into new territories, so to speak? How can we reach out into new communities that weren’t included in the inaugural conference?
As I read through blogs I see many already making plans to attend in 2006. How can we continually encourage new voices to come into the conversation? By continuing to involve everyone in the process. And by continuing to invite new women and men to participate.
For example, I hope we do have a session or even a conference on infertility blogging. Please come, Cecily and everyone! Those who know my story know infertility and the infertility blogging community matter to me. [By the way, also see Cecily’s post on Blog Etiquette.]
Liz Ditz listed a few of Who Were Missing at Blogher 2005
I don’t know how next year will have room for everyone! 🙂
Identity
Many have noted that Jory Des Jardins and others used the term Identity Blogging in the session on “How to Get Naked” (liveblogging notes can be found in this post). This was the first time I had heard the term, and I like it too. The word “personal” has many connotations and meanings. For example, Jay Rosen in this video interview says his blog is public and personal. But he does not mention his private life. The phrase identity blogger to me means that I am blogging my identity, creating one and revealing it at the same time. What we have most of all, all of us, as bloggers, beyond anything else, is our identity. It’s our flavor. Our scent. Our hue. What makes me me, what makes us each distinctive. It is who we are.
Koan Bremner (left) speaking during the How to Get Naked session
The freedom and confidence blogging can bring to life
The confidence, hope, power and freedom blogging bring to life were evident in Jory’s How to Get Naked session featuring Heather Armstrong, Ronni Bennett, and Koan Bremner. In particular, I felt Koan’s sharing of the ways blogging has helped her feel more confident and proud to be a transperson (at one point during the session she revealed this phrase on a T-shirt worn beneath her jacket) illustrated significantly how blogging can help make a life worth living, to use her words. (It was great to meet Koan after our previous connecting in email and blogs.)
Although Dina Mehta wasn’t able to make it to Blogher due to flooding in Bombay, she sent a statement describing the power of blogging in her society which was read in the Globalization session lead by Nancy White:
…the blog world is toppling and threatening many of our traditional structures, giving open voice and power to many who hitherto had none. It is a world that is not hierarchical, one that encourages an even-playing field for free speech and debate no matter what gender or age or race or religion you belong to, it does not have many pre-ordained rules and prescriptions, it is one where we need to learn to respect personal space, and to embrace team play that can be so rewarding.
How many have partners that understand their blogging. Mine still does not truly grasp what’s happening. As a woman in India, there is a greater challenge, as the roles are more defined.The effect is that we are wresting away control from our spouses, from the traditional family structures. While for the blogger, it is empowering, where the connections have power or perceived status and influence, it can change dynamics in the household.
Bearing the burden of being a minority
I’ve never thought of myself as a minority – until I began blogging and reading “where are the women?”. I’ve been in situations where I was the only woman, in math and science classes, for example, but I didn’t think of myself as a minority. For much of my education, I felt surrounded by women. My two employment situations before motherhood were both in offices where I worked for women, surrounded by women (one was an immunology research laboratory, the other was a social-services nonprofit). It wasn’t until I married my husband that I began to understand a little from a racial perspective what it is like to be alone. Ponzi’s podcasts (Part 1 and Part 2), especially Halley Suitt’s comments about her son, resonated with me.
Mena Trott in one session described the abuse she received because she was a woman and CEO: I am really sad that I can’t write any more.
Those who are the only ones bear the burden of being a minority. Everything they do is seen as representative of their group as a whole. They lose the freedom to be themselves and can end up crushed, or feeling forced to be someone different.
What does marginalization mean? I’m not talking dictionary definition. Or maybe I am. What I want is to know how it happens so that we can prevent it. Or at least help it when it happens.
In her video interview with JD Lasica, organizer Lisa Stone mentioned marginalization, describing how mommy bloggers had felt accepted and empowered at Blogher. I was happy to see the vibrant group of mommy bloggers and participate in their session. Yet won’t we always have marginalization? Won’t someone always feel on the edge, ignored, separated? For example, Ponzi Indharasophang pointed out in her podcasts from Blogher (part 1, part 2) that bloggers of multi-racial heritage and Asian heritage felt frustrated by the description and implication of the brown bloggers session (Live blogging notes here by posthipchick). Bloggers who can’t or don’t have kids may have felt marginalized by the attention given to mommybloggers at the conference. The problem may not be with marginalization as much as with our need to learn how to continually reach out into new comers, new corners and new communities.
standing-room-only crowd in the mommy blogger session
Why do metrics matter? Which metrics matter?
The early debate on Play by today’s rules or Change the game? with Halley Suitt and Charlene Li was one of the major reasons I wanted to attend the conference. Many shared in the discussion, including danah boyd who described how men and women network differently, women tend to work hard to maintain strong ties. Since the debate, danah has also posted some interesting observations on the biases of links. Mary Hodder at the conference mentioned creating new algorithms to better measure linking and has continued that conversation in more detail on her blog. Like Mary, I hate rankism. I think I prefer the clouds concept Adina Levin mentioned in her comment, a concept of assocation rather than rank. Here’s more from Mary’s post to explain…
I think scoring, even a more sophisticated version of it, akin to page-rank, is problematic and takes what is delightful about the blogosphere away, namely the fun of discovering a new writer or media creator on their terms, not others. What I love is that people who read blogs are assessing them over time to see how to take a blogger and their work. But more recently, as I said, I’m seeing these poorly done reports floating around by PR people, communications companies, journalists, advertising entities and others trying to score or weight blogs. And after hearing the degree to which people are upset by the obtuseness of the top counts, and because they do want to monetize their blogs or be included into influencer ranks, I’m at the point where I’d like to consider making something that we agree to, not some secretly held metric that is foisted upon us.
Why do metrics matter? From dialogue I’ve read, it seems metrics matter because they matter to the media. The Top Whatever blogs are the ones that will be referenced and used to represent blogging to the majority of people in the world who don’t blog. They in a sense become who we are. Yet as Staci Kramer pointed out in the discussion, not all journalists care about the Top lists either.
Why should metrics matter to a blogger like me? I’ve been taking a bit of my own Blogging 101 advice these past couple weeks and considering what it is I am trying to do here. Why am I blogging? Sure, I use Technorati. In fact on the Blogher survey before the conference, I checked that I do care about traffic. I’ve even cried over my Technorati ranking. But that was mostly because I wanted to be involved in conversations. I wanted to know that others were reading and responding. And I also had mistaken ideas about what my Technorati rating should be, after seeing my husband’s statistics. I’ve now realized I’ll never have the links and traffic he does. We are blogging for different – but overlapping – communities and in separate niches.
All I want to do is write well and have good conversations. As far as finding good blogs, rankings only reveal what lots of people who link like to link. They are not necessarily indicators of good writing or good blogging or even blogs I want to read. I use Technorati, Feedster and PubSub to know who is linking and talking to me. But as for my ranking, I don’t need to know it in order to blog or to sense I am blogging successfully.
It is only when I’ve re-read danah’s essay on link bias that I find this reason (paragraph below) compelling. Blogging is only perpetuating current power structures. It’s true. Perhaps we can change it. Perhaps we do need to reveal the lack of neutrality. New metrics might only influence bloggers to blog in yet another way – then again, perhaps a diversity of metrics will encourage a diversity of voices:
Breaking this cycle is virtually impossible, but it how power maintains power. And in our current system, we are doing a damn fine job of replicating the power structures that pervade everyday life under the auspices of creating a new system that usurps power. Ah, what fun.
Still, i think it’s critical to work on new metrics so that we can at least start showing alternate ways of organizing information if for no other reason than to push back against the conception of neutrality. And thus, i’m stoked to help Mary out and i would encourage everyone else interested in altering the power structure to do so as well.
Why is traffic important?
Listening to what Mena Trott of SixApart and Heather B. Armstrong of dooce.com shared in discussion sessions at the conference, I began to wonder more why traffic is valued. Both of these bloggers started blogging before I did and had/have more readers than I do. And both of them have been beaten up, to the point that Mena stopped blogging and Heather turned off comments. More readers = more abuse.
Those who are blogging I believe may often be blogging because they want to express themselves and finally are empowered to do so. They have lacked other opportunities for their voice. When trolls and others criticize, I fear it may only confirm fears and previous experiences of being silenced.
Although I would welcome more readers, I wonder whether many bloggers would truly benefit from more traffic and visibility. Who has time and energy for trolls? Or the hate mails Heather describes? Many of us are trying to blog in our spare moments, in minutes grabbed here and there. If everyone who reads my blog left me a comment or linked to me in one day, it would be more than I could do to try to respond to everyone. Visibility not only affects commenters but also affects the writer. I’ve revealed less of myself since I’ve been exposed more. I am not sure that Technorati ranking or traffic should be as coveted as they seem to be.
danah boyd speaking at the closing session
Beware of Great Expectations – part 1: putting people on pedestals
danah in her observations on linking, pointed out that even mommy bloggers have a hierarchy.
I was also fascinated that most of the mommy bloggers that i met at Blogher link to Dooce (in Top 100) but Dooce links to no one. This seems to be true of a lot of topical sites – there’s a consensus on who is in the “top” and everyone links to them but they link to no one.
I believe that people want leaders. People want someone to admire. I’ve been in situations, both in social groups and organizations, where it seemed evident that people wanted someone else to be the leader. When I was the leader, people made comments to me that revealed they didn’t have a good sense of who I was. i was put on a pedestal. Hierarchy may be a part of human nature.
I think we humans want to worship someone. We want someone to be at the top. We want someone to idolize. We want to put people on pedestals. And then knock them down.
Great Expectations part 2: blog rules were meant to be broken
Then again, perhaps danah’s observation only reveals that the rules of blogging, so to speak, may be broken. In our Blogging 101 session, Susan Mernit and I encouraged linking to others, both in posts and blogrolls. That is how I started getting involved in conversations which was what I wanted from my blog.
Yet for certain styles of blogging, certain styles of writing, linking is not necessary. Some of my favorite blogs are intense windows into another world, rich on their own, with images from photographs and words. Others discover them and link with generous gratitude and joy. Community is built around them rather than explicitly by them.
Great Expectations part 3: no obligations please
As I was finishing this post, I noticed Halley’s response to danah. I don’t agree with the concept of noblesse oblige – I agree only if the noblisse themselves sense this and want to be generous. I disagree with any sense of obligation.
Also I find that asking for links – what Halley was encouraging in the opening Blogher debate – is different from giving links. In theory, I agree with giving links to those who ask. I’m happy to promote others. In practice however it has been strange for me. I’ve been asked for links – and I’ve given links – to bloggers with whom I had no relationship before or after the request. (At least one incident I remember happened right after I was published in the newspaper) I was trying to be generous but it ended up feeling fake to me. I believe links represent relationships. I link to someone I like – or don’t like – but someone I want to share a conversation or give a gift. A link lacking dialogue, passion or relationship is an empty one to me. A link to a blog that I wouldn’t choose to read except for obligation is fake.
But then again, how I see a link is different from the ways other define a link.
Generosity is not something that can be requested. If a link is a gift, then I think it should be given not out of obligation but out of desire. Do we have convention for asking for links? If so it’s not universal. I think we should beware of defining what a link means and reading into it.
Blogging is about freedom and relationship. Also bloggers who have larger audiences cannot link to everyone who reads them. It’s not a reasonable expectation. Many bloggers have enough burdens on them as it is.
Be generous! Let’s let bloggers be who they are!
Koan Bremner, Ronni Bennett and Heather B. Armstrong
The power of blog celebrity
Okay, just had to mention my own participation in this. At each conference, or at least at many conferences, I have had at least one situation where I run up to a blogger I admire and gush. I like to say “I like your blog” to someone who has no idea who I am! I don’t even introduce myself, as if I don’t count. Well, at least I don’t expect this celebrity blogger to have any idea who I am.
At the pre-conference dinner Friday night, I saw Heather of dooce sitting alone with Maggie of Mighty Girl and so I (rudely?) ran over to say hi while I could, before you are surrounded by people, I explained to her. I admire Heather for all she’s endured as a blogger and especially as a mom I admire the beauty of her posts, and the honesty of her sharing about her own experiences. She’s gone through a lot, in many ways. And continually goes through it, as more photographers and reporters come to her house and interview her about barfing or what not…
While reading through blogs, I’ve noticed many who said they wanted to be at this conference and put Blogher bloggers on pedestals, as if those of us who attended were special, extraordinary or something different from anyone else. Anyone could come! No one had to be invited or be at a certain level of blogging to be there.
And I think it’s good to remember that we’re all human beings. As Heather and Maggie said to me on Friday night while I was fawning –“we’re just bloggers”. No celebrity or sunglasses required. [More on Heather’s fans at Nina Turns 40]
What you don’t say
What intrigued me at the “How to Get Naked” session was learning what others don’t reveal on their blogs. In particular, I was curious what Heather B. Armstrong would say. Or rather what she wouldn’t say.
… there are certain responsibilities you have to people in your life
If you want to have good relationships with people in your life…what you need to do is assess your priorities in your life about who is important to you, would you say something to someone to their face or not
She doesn’t write about aspects of relationship with her husband, certain aspects of her depression or the address where she lives. Yet at the same time she said she revealed her struggle with depression on her blog because she felt she was lying to the people who had supported me most. I admire her for all she’s experienced and endured as a blogger – yet she continues to be transparent and share who she is with the world.
What you do say… can change someone else’s life
Ronni Bennett, whom I admire for her courage, experience and mission mentioned a rich reason to “Get Naked”:
When we admit to something difficult, we give other people permission and it puts it out there in the light of day.
If you reveal yourself, others will open their lives. The best proof of an intimate session is when others begin to share their stories. At the end of “How to Get Naked”, Amy Gahran started a cascade of revelations which only emphasized the power of the time we shared together.
[Since then, Amy has started an interesting investigative series examining the effect personal revelations could have on the professional – go take a look starting here or so…(update: Amy in the comments corrected my url for her site and that helped me find the permalinks for her posts)
Beverly Trayner, Noriko Takiguchi and Anna John
How English has impacted blogging: getting a better view and bigger picture of the world
The session Nancy White moderated When Globalization is Good for Women [Nancy’s notes] featuring Anna John Noriko Takiguchi, and Beverly Trayner was one that should have been shared with the entire conference, I believed. After all, if one of the missions of Blogher, one of the questions we were encouraged to answer at the end of the day, was what we would share with other women around the world, how could we answer that question if we didn’t know what other women around the world were thinking and blogging? My eyes were opened. I confess I started to think about issues I had not considered.
Bloggers who can speak more than one language have to choose which language to use for blogging. Yet other cultures lack blogging community and or terminology. Beverly shared how there are not even characters in Portuguese to use in the titles of Blogger posts. I confess I had no idea how “English is so embedded in the technology” to quote one panelist, until I listened. How can we create more dialogue and more listening across cultures and continents?
As the spouse of someone whose parents immigrated from Asia, I was intrigued by Anna’s description of Sepia Mutiny, a group blog and one of her many blogs, and the niche it has found, the importance of identity and second-generation voice.
Also of note are Noriko’s series of posts describing How to Eat Sushi Properly!
I felt this session was particularly valuable because of the power women can receive through connecting to each other around the world in blogs.
Lisa Williams excellent podcasting session
Is this on-line anywhere?
Lisa might listen to me read the phone book but I’m happy to hear her talk about technology…or anything…anyday…(how about Hyperlocal Journalism – a great Open Source Radio show featuring Lisa that aired this week!)
She knows what she needs to say to get the point across, using humor and culture to help make you remember it in great quick quotes.
I was sorry to leave during this session but wanted to go and experience part of the mommy bloggers too (also a good one!). I apologize that I was too tired to take extensive notes for either of these last sessions.
Would we have BlogHer in the ideal world? Is it an intermediate temporary step to a goal of equality and collaboration between genders or is it a permanent need?
I can see both sides of this question. Ted and I had an interesting dialogue when he came home from OSCON after attending a Women In Open Source session. It was interesting to compare how the two – overlapping – communities are confronting and working through issues at the same time. More below.
Can we cooperate?
Although I had looked forward to the opening debate, I left the session feeling disappointed. The take-home sentiment seemed to be that we women should go and make our own blogging metric tools. Between Marc Cantor’s encouragement to be entrepreneurs, Please go empower yourselves [see his posts here and here] followed by Halley Suitt’s statement You’re not going to get helped from companies where mostly men are succeeding I wondered whether cooperation was an option. I don’t want my gender to play a part in which blogging tools I use. Separate isn’t always equal. Sure we women could compete with the men by making our own stuff. But is that what we want? Do we want to empower ourselves by ourselves? Or don’t men need to be a part of the equation for us to find equality in a whole society? Isn’t competing against men playing by their rules instead of collaboration and cooperation?
The Hims at Blogher
Thanks to the 20% of attendees who were men! I told Ted that I could sense a different atmosphere in the room. Instead of other blogging or technology conferences I’ve attended where people would sometimes interrupt or talk on top of each other, Blogher seemed to have more of an atmosphere of respect and listening. I didn’t sense any domination or intimidation.
danah described it: The ones who usually have the most colorful feathers are sitting back, shoulders hunched, listening, trying.
I want to give special thanks to Scott Rafer, CEO of Feedster, who helped me with a technical detail of my presentation. Thanks! Mary Hodder also thanked him in her blog.
Marc Cantor helped me find Scott- thanks Marc! And thanks to Marc and Lisa for bringing the family along too – I missed mine but at least got to see some other cute little girls!
Honorary Blogher status goes to Robert Scoble who couldn’t be there but helped me find another conference attendee when I asked him for a phone number.
Also Enoch Choi who was busy working and studying for boards but available later to join some of us for wine and appetizers after hours.
Enoch Choi and Susan Kitchens at a Palo Alto wine bar
Ted and I were sorry he missed it, but he had a conflict with OSCON.
Emotional Life of Blogher
Of the 10 men who attended the Emotional Life of Weblogs session I led last November at BloggerCon III (mp3), 2 of them were at Blogher (Jay Dedman and Hong Qu) and 1 (Enoch) came later. Jerry Michalski wasn’t there at Blogher, but organized a post-Blogher chat and call earlier this week. Of the 8 women in the Emotional Life session, 4 of us were at Blogher (Susan Kitchens, Susan Mernit, Lisa Williams and me). Total, 7 of 18 of us made it to Blogher. Not a bad stat!
Another stereotype shattered at Blogher: I’m not too smart to be fashionable ;-).
I’ve been planning to write a post about fashion and my experience of it. For years, I felt I didn’t have resources to care about my clothes. And I didn’t care. I also felt I shouldn’t care. After all, don’t intelligent women have better things to do?
But suddenly, now that I am finished creating my family and getting out more often, I am discovering I like clothes. I’m having fun with fashion and playing by putting pieces together. Does this make me dumb?
No, certainly not, as evidenced by fashion model Anina who came to Blogher and said at the closing session: …really nice to be able to talk to some girls besides only geek guys and to see so many hot chicks who know how to code. I noticed her shoes at first – I confess – while walking past her in the hall (and her height!) and after she commented to the group in the final discussion, I wanted to find out more about her. Her blog and this podcast with her impressed me!
Amazing Blogher-blogger Beth Kanter captured many fashions from Blogher, a series on shoes including Anina’s and one on jewelry including one of my earrings. And Renee Blodgett included me in a vibrant pictorial post on Blogher style (go look!). So perhaps I am getting a sense of fashion at last…;-)
Nitpicking
Here are a few things I would change if I could about Blogher. On Saturday morning I found the music videos distracting, preventing conversations that could have happened. Music I wouldn’t mind, but visuals, such as movies or videos, detract from dialogue.
I would have added more Birds Of a Feather session or more mixing times. I longed for more time to connect. Perhaps I should have skipped sessions – but I didn’t want to miss any of those either! An icebreaker or two would have been excellent. I would have liked the ability to meet others whom I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Of course, I would have liked better wi-fi, but Ted tells me even OSCON had problems sustaining wifi.
Yes, longer sessions would be good too…perhaps another day or half-day of conference?
Miriam Verberg’s post A digestive biscuit of Blogher contains wonderful suggestions, including on-site childcare (yeah!), more time for sessions and an explanation from Elisa Camahort in the comments concerning the lack of wifi.
Taking a moment to connect with Ronni Bennett in the lobby
Blogher 2006 Speakers I’d like to see
Next year I’d like to see some who were first time-blogging-conference-attendees and perhaps first-time speakers lead sessions at Blogher. I hope the new voices and new faces will continue. I’d like to see more diversity and variety. Yet at the same time I’d also like to see some well-known women who were not at ’05 be involved in sessions and presentations at ’06, for example Linda Stone, Liz Lawley, Lili Cheng.
I hope Blogher can be a place where we believe in each other enough to let each other try new things. If part of the mission of Blogher is to help women receive more exposure, then I believe that it is crucial to reserve speaker slots for women only. How else will more women discover their skills as discussion leaders and speakers?
Where do speakers come from?
Elisa Camahort posted a helpful and fascinating explanation describing Where do speakers come from?. I would not have become a speaker at all if someone (or some group of someones) hadn’t believed in me for the first time and let me have the opportunity to try it. Dave Winer invited me to be a discussion leader at BloggerCon III and helped me get started on this path. How did Dave know who I was? I had linked to him, and he to me. But more than that, I traveled to BloggerCon II, and hung out with Lisa Williams, who knew Dave. I think we ended up having dinner with him and a group of others on Saturday night. Somehow Dave decided to ask me to be involved with BloggerCon III.
After BloggerCon, I spoke at Northern Voice. I did apply to be a speaker, but I also had met committee member Roland Tanglao at BCIII. On the way down the hall at Northern Voice, after my session, Chris and Ponzi invited me to speak at Gnomedex. Later this spring, Susan Mernit, whom I’d met at BCIII, asked me to help her with the Blogher Blogging 101 session.
I believe that there is no substitute for face to face interaction. There’s no substitute for the opportunity to meet people in person, even if it is a quick exchange of greetings or business cards shared over coffee or cocktails. Relationships are crucial. It’s an advantage that can’t be discounted. So while I am grateful for The Speaker’s Wiki and Mary’s work on it – and I added an entry for myself – I believe that networks and connections will still be powerful. After all, would you trust a random name or someone recommended by a friend? And would you choose someone who has never been a speaker or someone whom you’ve heard and know to be excellent? The way we will see more women speakers at conferences is if we continue to build relationships among each other. If we continue to get together. And if we continue to promote each other as we can and help each other find opportunities to speak and connect…and if we take advantage of the opportunities that come to us…
Are we all on the same page? How much do we need to agree with each other? Where do we go from here?
I sense conflict between the value of tolerance and also the belief in a core set of values. Listening to Ponzi’s podcasts Part 1 and Part 2, and reading blog posts, I discovered conversations where attendees disagreed. Even at the conference itself, women criticized each other. Staci Kramer’s post Blog different? BlogHer participants illustrate diversity of the Web provides an excellent summary of some of these situations. Also see Jennifer Warwick’s Dirty Girl: Gutsy Woman? and its comments. I also want to credit Nancy White for facilitating dialogue, creating community and building bridges across some of these conflicts. As Blogher continues however the culture may become more defined, whether explicitly stated or by the simple state of what happens and who comes. I hope we at Blogher are able to have a clear sense of mission while at the same time always inviting and encouraging diversity.
This is a conference that the community built Elisa Camahort said in the San Francisco Chronicle article. May it always be.
Bloggers I enjoyed meeting at Blogher and conversations I hope will continue…
(in no particular order)
danah boyd and Adina Levin – I’m grateful I was able to have a short chat with these two, both of whom I quote in my Making Masks presentation.
Liz Ditz – fun to finally meet Liz who posted thorough notes starting here…
Liza Sabater – we had a great discussion about homeschooling – I asked her how she balances it all…
Halley Suitt – I got to hang with Halley and met her son too!
Susan Kitchens – writing an intense and awesome series live blogging the atomic bomb! She knows how to have fun!
Lisa Canter – has since become a vlogger! happy birthday!
Lisa Williams – what a way to spend a birthday – eh?! Thanks for the fun! And thanks for all the great daily bloghers! P.S. I meant to take a picture of the two of us too…
Susan Mernit – my energetic host and responsible for my decision to make the trip – many many thanks!
Update: Susan also introduced me to Amy Gahran and we had fun (although I happened to be too tired that night) hanging out with her, Susannah Gardner and JD Lasica at Susan’s place Friday night.
Ponzi – I found her on my flight from Seattle and then the adventures began…!
Hadashi World – grateful to have met her! – I especially love her recent post he’s not a shoe
Nichelle Stephens I met her through Susan Mernit on Friday night
badgerbag – funny, friendly, bold – good contributor to the storytelling BOF
Lilia Efimova – great to finally meet Lilia after missing Nancy’s welcome party
Jennifer Warwick – connection through the Blogging 101 session – good blog and also I appreciated her piece Sorry My Mom and Dad Won’t Let Me Program which Scoble noted was in Fast Company.
Jenny Lauck, Jenn Satterwhite (blog down right now?! – update; it’s back now!) and Meghan Townsend – thank you for creating the powerful mommyblogging session!
Koan and Ronni – thanks to each of you for being who you are!
Elisa, Jory and Lisa …what else is there to say?! THANK YOU!
