It’s the first morning of BlogHer and the ballroom at the Hyatt is filled. The organizers up on stage are thanking the sponsors and the attendees are opening their lap tops. Just a usual tech conference, right?
Wrong.
It’s the second annual BlogHer conference and not only is the 600+ audience 90% women, some of them have kids in tow, from babies in arms to toddlers nibbling fruit.. When you see at least five different women walk by, each of them holding a child by one hand, and a laptop in the other, you know this ain’t no boys club –au contraire, it’s the epitome of open source journalism–lots of the women here just plain don’t go to tech conferences–but they come to this one.
For me, a friend of the co-founders, and an advisor to the conference, the energy in the room is bliss–this is the conference where I not only talk about emerging technology, social media and cool tools–strong interests–but where I can also talk about relationships, social identity and
real world-virtual world relationships–things that I think about a lot that typical conferences don’t always cover.