BlogHer: Staging Legacy

Okay, right up front – this post revolves around #BlogHer16.  Every year that I am fortunate enough to be able to attend this conference, I try to write something in preparation before heading out to the conference.  I am writing it here this year as WLP would not exist without BlogHer.  Allow me to explain.

I joined the BlogHer online community, under the user name of ArtPax in 2006, and started planning to attend that same year – but as I say in my capsulized story of the personally turbulent time, “I wanted to stay married,” so I did not attend in 2006. By 2007 I was in Indiana taking care of my mother in her home so she could transition from this life.
BlogHer was in Chicago that year,  just after Mom’s funeral, so I decided to attend.  It was a wonderful, and much needed, experience that allowed me to integrate a positive and forward looking perspective back into my life.  At some point I started using my own name to post.
When SheKnows Media came into the picture, I developed a third associated identity under my first and last name.  This last one is associated with a SheKnows account.  When I returned to my home in Arizona, I had turned 50, my mother was gone, and my daughter was in college. My whole life had re-0rganized itself, without my overt permission.  Within a year, posting once a week was more than I could do, and I was dropped from their publishing and advertising network.  My online presence and identity expanded, but posting on a personal blog diminished in importance.  I was changing.  Blogging was changing.  And BlogHer changed too.
I’ve followed the changes in BlogHer for quite a while.  I attended BlogHer Conferences in 2007, 2008, 2011 (two BlogHer conferences that year,) 2012, 2013, and 2014.
Without the influence of the BlogHer Community and Conferences I would not be connected with the amazing, intelligent, eloquent group of midlife bloggers and businesswomen, online and digital writers, that I count as a very important part of my life that has brought me to a place where I am developing the concept of the Women’s Legacy Project for you, for me, for all of us.
I am writing about my overall experience with BlogHer to provide context for the next article that will look at what BlogHer is today.  I also will cover the path I have watched it take to its current corporate incarnation.