Yes there are some bloggers talking about the cliques and expressing some “high school like angst”. I just can’t address that. It is what it is. With 800 women, there are mini social groups. tribes. clicques. lists. It is our nature to flock this way. (shrug)

I’m most interested in the bigger buzz, and for me the more important buzz, the money buzz. It’s more complicated than that but I’m still going to call it the money buzz because it comes down to money – and class and I swear I’ve begun to channel Shuna but this is what it feels like to me.

First, the mommybloggers of color. I can’t even imagine what it would have felt like to hear a marketing dude say (and I’m paraphrasing) “we don’t market to you because we don’t know what to do with you.” Even reading it post conference was too much for me.

I’ve said for years, to anyone who was brave enough or stupid enough to ask my opinion (or be trapped someplace where I had the floor) that companies and websites and products need to stop being so WHITE and so MIDDLE CLASS and so STRAIGHT…. in that order. And every time I’ve said it, there is silence. Complete and total silence. They don’t know what to say to that or do with that. And putting an ethnic or person of color on your website does not change that you are still WHITE and MIDDLE CLASS and STRAIGHT. There’s more to it than that and you have the opportunity to figure it out by emailing people like Kelly or Stephania or Nordette or any other women of color who are out in the blogosphere. Ask them and they will tell you but you have to listen and you have to be serious about listening to them. Don’t just pretend like you care what they think and who they are.

I cannot believe I’m sitting here writing this. again. Didn’t I just say this stuff? I’m pretty sure I did. And I just can’t say anything else about this right now. So I’ll move on to another similar issue. This one from a panel I sat in on… the Blogging is More Than Words panel.

Everything was going along well when suddenly the room started to feel uncomfortable. Some of the panelists were talking about what they wouldn’t do to make money – to sell their work – to get noticed – to make money. I looked around the room and wondered how many of the women there could draw such firm barriers? How many women in that room just could not relate to what these panelists were saying? How many women might walk out of the room vowing not to promote themselves because it “doesn’t feel right”?

And then I thought some stuff that I’m not going to write in this blog post. And as I was thinking those things, Shuna stood up and said what I was thinking – but a lot more diplomatically. But because she was nice, and she didn’t hit hard, I’m not sure if anyone but me heard what she was trying to say….

Shuna said that what she was hearing was those women had choices. They could choose not to promote themselves, they had options. She wasn’t that lucky. She has to promote herself or nobody else will. She has to pay the bills. She doesn’t have the options, the choices that those women have. (Shuna did not blog specifically about this particular session but she does make mention of it in her live-blogging of the craft blogging session in day 2.)

Class. It’s about class. Again.  And on to the next issue…

It’s one thing to say “I will never do this….” and be able to stick to that – to be lucky enough to not compromise yourself in any way. But not everyone is that lucky.

When a blogger says “I would never do that” I always wonder what it would take to change their minds. Would you put ads on your blog if your husband lost his job and didn’t get a new one… for a year? And you had 3 kids? And no health insurance? What if you found yourself with 10k in medical bills and only made minimum wage? Would you put ads up then? What if you realized you could make as much money as Heather? What if you realized the only way you could feed your kids was to sell your art to Pay Per Post? What if…

And that’s the problem.

There are large groups of very smart and very talented bloggers and they’re quick to say they would never do this on their blog or they would never do that. And that’s fine. I’m not saying you should put ads on your site if you don’t want to. I’m not saying you should write for PPP if you don’t want to. I’m not saying you should grab some big company’s offer that’s to pay you a couple of hundred dollars a month and also by the way own your content forever. I’m definitely NOT saying that. But I think we all need to be very careful about what we say “never” about. Not just because we might find ourselves having to do exactly what we said we wouldn’t…but because other women are listening. And other women are not YOU and they are not ME. Those women do not have the all of the same opportunities that we do. When we say “never!” we make them second guess themselves for their choices. When we say “NEVER!” we make them feel like second class citizens because they can’t say “NEVER!”

Women shouldn’t under-value their work. This is something else I’ve ranted about for months on end. The big company who offers peanuts and wants to own your content just might be offering you a really bum deal. But maybe not. We aren’t all Dooce. Or Woulda Coulda. Or BYH err Notes From the Trenches. Or Motherhood Uncensored. Or Busy Mom. Or Sweetney or … or … or … for some of us, a couple of hundred dollars a month is as good as it is going to get or is a really excellent way to get a foot in the door. And for some of us, Google Adsense that brings in $25 a quarter is as good as it gets, not everyone can sell ad space for $30 or $50 or $100 a week.

Be careful with what you say “never” to, please. And be careful how you say it. Not everyone writes the way you do. Not everyone can land the fab job in a great community. And that’s ok. Everyone has value. Everyone’s blog has value.

And one last thing, there’s not a damn thing wrong with selling your work for less than someone else says you should. (Unless of course that someone else is offering to pay you what she thinks you’re worth. And she isn’t, is she? She’s also not giving up her latest big money gig so you can get your share… )

I’ll admit that I did not know what to expect in regards to Sunday’s “Unconference” event. I was even more unsure when people started showing up and I saw what a small group was participating.

I found myself outside talking to the hotel manager about the hotel and about the helicopter bringing construction equipment in to a work site on the next block (this caused traffic to be shut down all around us – both walking traffic and car traffic) when the official unconference began. I walked in and everyone was in a circle, Kaliya was explaining how things were going to work – or not work – it was up to us to make stuff happen. Cool but …

And then people started grabbing paper and markers and creating their sessions and it was awesome.

Being able to wander from table to table and corner to corner. Listen for a bit, talk for a bit and move on as the spirit moved me. Awesome. Totally my type of event. I’m a mover. 15 minutes on one topic and I’m good and ready for something new.

This format allowed me to sit in on discussions that I would not otherwise have chosen. KT did my chart, much to the amusement of Maria and Leah. (and my amusement and KT’s as well, lol) I also sat in on a discussion about blog tools (email newsletters vs RSS?) I chatted with Liz about her idea for a PSA about rape. Also I listened to some BlogHer Con pros and cons and talked to some folks about how marketing folks should and should not market to blogging women.

Really cool stuff, in a format that I loved. Thanks Kaliya and Elisa and Kristy for making this happen.

Remember when I said I didn’t really attend many sessions while at BlogHer Con 07? You’re probably wondering what I did instead. I didn’t sightsee and I didn’t go back to the hotel for a nap. I also didn’t skip out and shop or bar hop. I talked and talked and talked to all sorts of people, and that was cool.

In no particular order…

I had a great chat with Virginia about how we got to where we are not. I loved her story, it was a lot more interesting than mine. Heh.

Pam Sellers of CNN was fabulous to meet in person and talk to about CNN and blogging and community and life in general.

The Yahoo sponsored Cafe lured me in, as you might expect, and I found myself sitting there with Michelle. She struggled with a new blog template that wouldn’t behave, I worked on a spam issue at BlogHer and chatted with anyone who happened to wander in. It was a really fantastic space to just sit in a relatively quiet room and work or talk or just relax together. (And I did buy two books and have them signed – one for The Heir to the Throne, y’all know I love Woolgathering! and I hope Riley will love her children’s book, Think Cool Thoughts as much as I do. One for Michelle, Wreck this Journal and I’d have bought a second one for RJ but she sold out, which is fabulous.)

I talked to one of my co-editors in crime err health, Catherine Morgan, for quite a long while leading up to a chat with Gloria Pan and Kim Gandy (President of NOW) and the always fabulous Liza Sabater (at Culture Kitchen) joined us mid-way through our chat. We probably could have sat there for hours on end, talking about women and feminism and online community and NOW. Brilliant women, each and every one of them. (And my mother was pretty impressed that I got to hang out with Kim Gandy – she was also annoyed that I didn’t get her autograph. Heh.)

I found myself standing in the hallway, out on the roof, or in the beer garden chatting with whoever happened to be wandering by. I didn’t attend as many sessions as I would have liked but I gained a lot from those conversations and there were dozens upon dozens more that I would like to have had. Next year!

During the conference, people would come up to me and ask if I was enjoying myself. I also got email and instant messages and message board posts asking me how the conference was going. Post-conference people asked those same questions. I’ve had a hard time answering and I wasn’t sure why.

I thought it was working the BOF registration table that threw me off. I really enjoyed working the table and saying hello to everyone coming in and playing with all of the different “niche” group lists and Susan and Elana are fabulous to hang around with but… I missed the opening keynote. I was constantly moving and working and didn’t get a break until I’m not even sure when… I had a hard time getting settled into things. But now, as I sit down to write my recap of sessions and speakers, I realize what the problem really was.

I didn’t actually attend BlogHer Con. Over the course of two days, I only attended four panels. I live blogged two of them, which means I participated differently than if I had not been live blogging. I sat in on another panel that I really wouldn’t have sat in on just because I wanted to give morale support to Michelle who really did want to attend. And the fourth I sat in on because it was the least crowded room on the third floor and I was exhausted.

There you have it. This is why I’ve struggled with how to respond.

I enjoyed every single session I attended. Of the four, there wasn’t a bad speaker or a boring session in the bunch.

• Life Stages of Online Communities was really interesting. Listening to women in various stages of online community talk about how they got to where they are, why they made decisions they made and what they’ve learned in the process was excellent.
• Technical Tools to Build Traffic was all you’d expect with Elise and Vanessa leading the way. (This is the one I sat in on for Michelle. I sat in on Elise’s panel last year, have her posts bookmarked and refer them to people almost everyday.)
• Blogging is More Than Words is the panel is slipped into because it wasn’t crowded and it was close by. This isn’t a panel I’d have chosen normally because while the subject is interesting and the panelists all fabulous artists, this just isn’t the direction I’m heading in on my personal blogs. I did however have a lightbulb moment or two when listening to Tracy talk about “Shutter Sisters” and Shuna talk about “class”. This just goes to show you that even if you slip into a session at BlogHer that you wouldn’t normally have thought about attending, you’re still going to walk away with something you can use.
• On day two, I live blogged Women Across the World and walked out of there with a ton of women power energy. The panelists, every single one of them, were smart and inspiring. They were interesting and left us all with a lot to think about.

And that was that.

OK there was the BOF lunch which was amusing and fun once I found the table full of lesbians (and a poly or two). Last year I looked high and low for Nina Smith and never found here. This year I chatted quite a bit with her about the kids and their financial strategies, such that they are. We talked about where Queercents is going next, which was really interesting.

The Google breakfast was really the only disappointing moment of the conference for me (and for TW and Prince J). The Google folks just sat at their table, they didn’t talk – they didn’t encourage people to come and talk to them. They looked bored. Or maybe they were tired and hungover. Whatever, it was disappointing.

The artificial intelligence keynote was interesting. Esther Dyson is awesome.

And of course the closing with Elizabeth Edwards was interesting. Nothing surprising or unusual, just Edwards doing what she does very well.

So what did I do all day if I wasn’t attending sessions? I’ll tell you in the next post. Because I was doing some really cool stuff.