BlogHer Conference 2006: Look in the Mirror and Lead!

Here is some good news for a change, and it is of special importance to women bloggers around the globe from emerging countries*1. There is a lot of good stuff here for guys too if you are smart enough to be able to keep pace with the fast-moving women and girls of the world.

While researching news and blog posts today on the historic election in the Democratic Republic of Congo I came across a “Heads Up” post at the Blogpulse Newswire blog about the BlogHer Conference 2006 in San Francisco. BlogHer is an online network of over 4100 women bloggers co-founded by three American business professionals Lisa Stone of Surfette, Jory Des Jardins, and Elisa Camahort. The purpose of the network is to help “… create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community.” (More about BlogHer mission and vision and the BlogHer co-founder biographies)

This year’s conference in San Francisco had attendees from around the world, and even I received an invite back in the Spring of this year but unfortunately could not attend (O.K., I admit that I was a bit Chicken to be around all of those top female bloggers but I plan to go next year. Really!). Professional journalist and tech writer Chris Nolan of Spot-On.com was the moderator at the closing keynote address and she conducted interviews with some of the rising stars of new media and new media technology: Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, Caroline Little of State of Grace, Mena Trott of Six Apart (creators of Typepad & Movable Type), and Grace Davis of SFGate.com. Also have a look at the BlogHer Conference 2006 list of corporate sponsors.

I can remember writing to my friend Sokari of the Black Looks blog and the newly launched African Women Reblog some months ago that I thought it would be a great idea if she and more African women bloggers looked into capitalizing from their work online. In other words, making money from their excellent writing and multimedia content creation (photos, video). It appears that many of the women bloggers attending the BlogHer Conference 2006 have mastered the art of blogging for dollars and having fun while you are doing it. Here is an excerpt from Lisa Stone’s post "Look in the Mirror and Lead" along with other posts and resources from the conference and a related article at the Wall Street Journal:

"In the past year, each of these women has leveraged Web-based technologies to pursue their professional agendas and triumphed -- while experiencing with unrelenting public pressure and excoriating personal criticism. If success is the best revenge, revenge must be sweet indeed for this quartet. For today, each of these women enjoys kudos from their readers/users (even critics), while at the same time being able to point to cold, hard facts such as Web traffic and revenue that demonstrate their ideas were worth pursuing.

How'd they do it? Nolan's skillful interviews Saturday evening revealed four very different women whose core message was remarkably the same: Look in the mirror and lead."

· "Instead of waiting for the white knight to come and save us, we need to find the leader in the mirror and act on those skills fearlessly." - Arianna Huffington

· "I've always had my pilot light on. Sometimes I don't pay attention to it but it's there. In responding to Katrina, I didn't even think about the obstacles. I just thought that I should be there helping somehow." - Grace Davis

· "You either fly with it (change) or you don't ever get on the boat. And I think you get on the boat." - Caroline Little

· "I've followed my gut and my passion...I 've seen so many people driven by title. As soon as you know someone cares more about title than the product, it really shows." - Mena Trott


BlogHer Conference 2006 blog posts, articles, and resources

Look in the Mirror and Lead by Lisa Stone
(BlogHer Conference 2006 Keynote Address)

The Wall Street Journals Who’s Who in New Media by Marianne Richmond

Blogher '06 Session Discussion: Audience Building and $$$ Generation on Day One BlogHer

More BlogHer ’06 Session Discussions, Panels, and Speakers

BlogHer Network Blogroll – blogs by women (and sometimes men too)

Note*1: BlogHer is looking for contributing editors and members from developing countries, especially editors from the African continent. Get in touch with Lisa Stone if you are interested in joining their team.

Technorati tags: BlogHer Bloghercon Blogging Women women entrepreneurs New Media Global Voices