While not the be all and end all of BlogHer, the personal connections made at BlogHer, and retained from conference to conference, and grown between conferences provide a positive anchor within the network for me.
This point was well illustrated for me yesterday when @flexhourjobs, aka Jacqueline Sloboda, tweeted:
“Great to see another familiar face @nerthus among the amazing 5000 influential women voices making an impact #Blogher12 New York.”
I posted previously about the meta communication and pioneering elements of BlogHer 12 as a cultural network of women, and I cannot place enough emphasis on this defining aspect of the BlogHer network. But why an event, BlogHer, is successful or significant doesn’t capture the personal elements of the experience that make me happy to be a part of the network and to show up time and time again at events close to home and across the country.
Nothing says welcome better than a smiling face! Mimi, Suzi, Jacqueline, Jan, Judi, and yes, Denise, Elisa, and Lisa, were all repeat smile generators for me. No, we are not all buddy-buddy in real life but we came, we conferenced, and we grew as individuals while growing our personal recognition networks in meaningful and yes, influential, ways.
The “old girl” network isn’t as big as it should be. And while part of me cringes at the thought of creating divisions rather than building bridges with what already exists, the exclusion of women from much of what already exists in the world of public networks remains problematic. Going around and building new structures rather than infiltrating, attempting internal change, or destroying competitors is a civil and feminine tactic of the ages.
I met and talked to women, lunched with, and laughed with women I would never ever meet if I stayed inside my box. Hmmmm…… that was an interesting choice of words, and certainly worth a post in and of itself…file away for later.
I met a woman who is a TV Producer for Fox, Paula, who writes The List Producer, not someone I would normally meet or have a chance to talk to. But she is seriously into lists. The power of taxonomy, organization, indexes and distillation intrigues me. We talked our way through the introductory exercise at BlogHer, and I am sure I missed some other people, but becoming aware of her work gave me a female node (OMG, there is another inadvertent article – I’m just full of them, or it, this morning) or reference from which to hang other related concepts and constructs other than Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto.
I met the women behind The Second Lives Club Mary Lou Floyd and Carrie Tuhy who are powerhouses of perception and publications. I didn’t realize who they were (and I have to confess didn’t really care to know until later…) because I thoroughly enjoyed the compassionate intelligence that beamed from Mary Lou and the sardonic nonstop wit of Carrie as I snarfed lunch with them during the Martha Stewart Keynote address/interview. Click on over to their site and check out the August 2nd article on “The Her in BlogHer.” These are “women to be reckoned with…” as they used to say in the colloquial parlance of a rural, agrarian community with which I was far too well acquainted.
I met many women with whom I would love to stay connected and see again and read their thoughts, and so on, and I would list them all but I would leave someone out and that would be sorrowful, and besides, kudos and giggles are for Twitter. I’m @nerthus. Follow me. I mentioned some wonderful women I met at #blogher12. And thanks in part to them, and the acceptance of menopausal memory, I finally catch on to most things, and I have figured out that Twitter helps me to organize my connections and it is great for taking notes. Thanks to this conversation:
Nancy Hill (@Nerthus)
8/2/12 10:11 AM
I wish I could take notes and tweet at the same time….
Dave Hartman (@HartmanDave)
8/2/12 10:13 AM
@Nerthus Tweets are notes!
Shared via TweetCaster (http://tweetcaster.com)
I now understand that tweets are notes. The problem is getting the tweets from note taking sessions more than a few seconds ago…. Tweetcaster allows me to see ALL my Tweets. So my iPad app of the week is once again, Tweetcaster.
You are getting at something really powerful here, the way that meeting each other, for the first time or again, is the heart of the IRL conference experience. It’s a huge part of it for me.
Thanks Deb! The IRL experience becomes ever so much MORE valuable in a digitally networked world. Analog rules in so many ways. I just have to tell you again that the the gala event you created for BlogHer12 was an absolutely marvelous, unexpected, fun, and delish experience (Chocolate!!!!)