BlogHer 08 brochure

Transcription

BlogHer 08 brochure

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CONFERENCE 2008
SAN FRANCISCO
JULY 18–20, 2008
THE WESTIN ST. FRANCIS
335 POWELL STREET
BlogHer ‘08
WELCOME TO BL O GH E R ' 0 8 !
DAY O NE : F RI D AY, J U LY 18 , 2 0 0 8
TIME
SESSIONS
8:00A Registration Opens — MEZZANINE
BlogHer Bookstore & Internet Café Opens, brought to you by
Childcare Opens
8:30–9:00A Breakfast ITALIAN, COLONIAL & GRAND BALLROOM
Makeover Pavilion & Exhibitor Hall Open
9:00–10:00A Welcome Session & Ice Breaker
— GRAND BALLROOM
10:00–10:30A Break
ITALIAN & Milk 'n' Cookies brought to you by:
COLONIAL
BlogHer Suite Retreat & Spa Opens, brought to you by
Sesame Street Suite Opens, brought to you by
10:30–11:45A Break-Out Session #1
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: Introversion, Blogging and BlogHer
Are you a free-spirited and totally open blogger who quakes at the notion of meeting people in
person? Does your heart pound when you walk into a room populated by more than half a dozen
people...whether you know them or not? Are you convinced that you are the only one who feels this
way, and that everyone else already knows each other? Well, we are kicking off the Who We Are
track by talking about why blogging and introversion actually go so well together, and by offering
tactics for getting past your own pounding heart, sweaty palms and paranoid fantasies to actually
enjoy an event like BlogHer and get the most out of it. Several bloggers are willing to get up in front
of the rest of you (and you know public speaking is ranked as the #1 fear, right?) and share how they
manage to overcome their natural tendencies to hibernate and instead have a great time. Shireen
Mitchell moderates this discussion with Shannon Glass, Jane Goodwin, Marilyn Porter,
who will share their personal tricks for having conquered their nerves and conquered BlogHer!
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: Taking Care of Business
If you're a blogger, and your blog contributes to your livelihood...whether through direct monetization
or as a platform to get freelance and consulting work...then it's a business. But what does that mean?
What should you be thinking about? Three experts are on hand to get down to brass tacks. Starting
with taxes. Kelly Phillips Erb is back to give you the low-down. Linsey Krolik will answer your
legal questions, including when incorporation makes sense. Finally Sabrina Parsons will try to
demystify the number one question many freelancers and consultants have: How do I quote for my
services and build a proposal that attaches the appropriate value to my time and the work I do?
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: Top-notch Political Opinion Commentary
How can you communicate your political positions with the highest quality, and then get those
opinions propagated...on TV or tha radio, in Op-Eds, blogs and even via blog comments? Two
absolute experts, Jennifer Pozner from Women in Media & News and Catherine Orenstein
from The Op-Ed Project are on hand to give you intensive instruction.
Last year attendees got just a teaser of Jenn, and we were asked for more. And several BlogHers
have taken Catherine's Op-Ed Class and couldn't say enough about it.
If you are among the many women who feel politically activated during these very "interesting"
times, then attend this session and make the most of your passion!
(Continued on next page)
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SESSIONS
10:30–11:45A Break-Out Session #1 cont.
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: FAQs for Beginning Bloggers
FAQs=Frequently Asked Questions, and we've lined up a team of expert bloggers who know
how explain the basics across many blogging platforms, protocols and philosophies. Do you
have questions about the best tools? The right design? The latest in blogging "etiquette"? Look no
further than these 4 kindly experts to give you the answers: Nelly Yusupova from WebGrrls Int'l,
Melanie Nelson (aka Chilihead from Blogging Basics 101), Michele Mitchell (aka Scribbit) and
Shazia Mistry.
TOWER SALON A
MommyBlogging: Is MommyBlogging Still a Radical Act?
Let me give you a bit of BlogHer history. Back in 2005, at our very first conference, Alice Bradley
brought the house down by declaring "MommyBlogging is a radical act!" Of course in 2006 we
had to have a session by that very name. By 2007 it was clear that MommyBloggers had claimed a
powerful presence in the blogosphere, and that they were being recognized as powerful consumers
by companies. Last year's MommyBlogging session, The State of the Momosphere addressed the
commercialization head on. Much to the dismay of some who still wanted to focus on the cultural
and community aspects of MommyBlogging. Having a MommyBlogging track allows us to serve
more interests, and we're kicking off the track with this look at the culture and community of
MommyBlogging. Lindsay Ferrier recently made us all stop and think about it with her post
"The State of the Mommyblog", and Lindsay is on hand to moderate this discussion with Polly
Pagenhart (aka Lesbian Dad), Maria from Immoral Matriarch and Charlene Li, who
still thinks blogging of any kind is a radical act, but is having trouble figuring out out to merge
her personal and professional blogging identities to feel like one whole person. Will commercial
influence come up? Probably. But it will be a different panel that delves into the ethics, policies and
guidelines MommyBloggers set for themselves (and would like to set for the marketers reaching out
to them.) This is a panel that focuses on what made MommyBlogging such a powerful community
force, before they became a powerful commercial force.
HAMPTON
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: Green/Social Change and Food/
Entertaining
10:30 – 11:10A: Green, Social Change and NPO/NGOs
Led by BlogHer Social Change contributing editor Britt Bravo
11:15 – 11:55A: Food, Cooking & Entertaining
Led by BlogHer Food contributing editor Kalyn Denny
ESSEX
Room of Your Own: Entertainment Bloggers and Twenty-Something Bloggers
10:30 – 11:10A: Entertainment Bloggers...film, TV, celebrity etc.
Led by Melissa Silverstein from Women & Hollywood, who will be joined by BlogHer Television
contributing editor Megan Smith
11:15 – 11:55A: Twenty-something Bloggers Meet-up
Led by Zandria
11:45–12:45P Lunch
ITALIAN,
COLONIAL &
GRAND
BALLROOM
Recycling Room is Open!
— SUSSEX
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SESSIONS
12:45–2:00P Break-Out Session #2
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: Race and Gender: What are the lessons of 2008
No, this actually isn't a re-hash of the Obama vs. Hillary debate. But certainly Election 2008 has
made us all look at our own (and society's, and the media's etc. etc. ) attitudes about race and
gender.BlogHers proved that you can indeed discuss these incredibly sensitive topics without it
descending into anarchy or hate speech, but it's tough. Please join Maria Niles, Jill Miller
Zimon, Cynematic, Adele Nieves and Caille Millner as we discuss what we've learned
about ourselves...and about others so far in 2008.
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: DIY Content Syndication and Promotion
There are now so many ways to get your word out, that every blogger has to make the decision:
how far and wide do I want to distribute my content? Do I want it to be automated or selective?
When do I start to feel like a spammer, not a sharer? Which tools are really effective, and which
are just taking my content for free? How do I track my words, once I've set them free? How do I
still protect my content? What about audio and video? We'll be talking tools like Twitter, Facebook,
kirtsy, StumbleUpon, Digg, Qik, Utterz: all of which can be either well-used...or abused. Krista
Neher moderates this discussion with avid users Anne-Marie Nichols and Gwen Bell who
use the tools...and have opinions, backed up by data, about them all, and Esther Brady (aka
faintstarlite) who will be on hand to talk video distribution.
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: How To Take Names and Be Taken Seriously as a Political
Blogger
Political Bloggers, like any bloggers, have a tremendous amount of freedom...to write about what
they want, to be as partisan as they want, to shed the objectivity that traditional reporters have
(or some would say that they must pretend they have) and to pursue the art of persuasion. Not all
political bloggers get taken seriously, however, and while there is that awesome freedom, political
bloggers who want to be taken seriously also have an awesome responsibility in this current era of
participatory media.
The panel before this one will be a political opinion writing workshop, but this panel will focus
more on the aftermath of publishing your writing...how to deal with the ensuing conversations
professionally, how to get your work out there and considered reputable and serious...no matter
how partisan you might be. Join Morra Aarons-Mele, Shark Fu, Mona Gable and Fausta
who are each taking names, and being taken seriously.
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: Why Bloggers (Even Non-Programmers) Benefit from
Participating in Open Source Projects
Open source projects are a source of opportunity. Skill development, networking, career opportunities,
confidence-building...you name it. A lot of us don't really know how these projects work, and we
don't really know whether there's a way for us to participate if we're not actual code jockeys. This
session will evangelize getting involved, at some level, with the one or more of the many open
source projects out there. Join Technetra CEO, Alolita Sharma, Freebase community director
Kirrily Robert and Mozilla.org's Chief Lizard Wrangler Mitchell Baker for this practical, and
hopefully inspiring, session.
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SESSIONS
12:45–2:00P Break-Out Session #2 cont.
TOWER SALON A
HAMPTON
MommyBlogging: Public Parenting & Privacy
While we will definitely talk about the basics of online security...and how to actually choose how
much privacy you're willing to sacrifice...we're also going to talk about another aspect of this hot
topic. When, if ever do your kids start to have a right to know that you're blogging about them, and
what you're blogging about them? Have your feelings about blogging your children's lives changed
as they've gotten older? And do your feelings change your blogging? We'll talk to bloggers on
different sides of the issue: We'll talk to Chris Jordan about the unfortunate and very real reasons
she protects her privacy online. We'll talk to Shannon Lowe, whose children are getting old
enough to weigh in on what she should and should not blog about them. We'll talk to Crystal
whose kids are also old enough, and who she has blogged about in a way that actually earned
her hate mail! We'll talk to Shino Tanaka, a former police officer and current online community
manager, about where danger lies and how to protect oneself. Shireen Mitchell will ringlead
the conversation.
Brought to you by:
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: Style/Fashion and Travel
12:45 – 1:25P: Fashion, Beauty, Style & Shopping
Led by BlogHer Fashion contributing editor Susan Wagner
1:30 – 2:10P: Travel
Led by BlogHer's former Travel contributing editor and current author of an NYC travel book
Suzanne Reisman
ESSEX
Room of Your Own: The "Mother Load" and MidlifeBloggers.com
12:45 – 1:25P: The Mother Load: Blogging about caring for our loved ones
Led by Melissa Massello from Care.com, this discussion will bring together the "Sandwich
Generation" to talk about caring for our kids, our parents, our in-laws, our pets.
1:30 – 2:10P: Come meet the MidlifeBloggers.com community at this meet-up hosted by ByJane
2:00–2:30P Break
ITALIAN &
COLONIAL Join us for Infant CPR Training, brought to you by:
in TOWER SALON B
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: Blogging with a Global Perspective
We all talk a good game about how blogging can help us communicate across time and space...
and certainly across national borders. But do you know how big your audience outside your own
country is? And do you bear your global audience in mind when blogging? What does it or would
it change about your blogging to be a little more accessible and welcoming to a truly international
community? Sometimes it's just little things...sometimes you can do more. If the blogosphere is a
global village this panel will make sure you're putting out a welcome mat to the world. Join Nicole
Simon (blogging from Germany), Holly Burns (a British ex-pat blogger), Claudia Mar Ruiz
who blogs for the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo and Adrianne George, who runs Black Women
in Europe.
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: Writing Workshop
Journalist, blogger, editor and consultant Amy Gahran will be conducting this workshop going
over these basic of online writing excellence. Amy writes at her own blog, Contentious and edits
the Poynter Institute's group blog, E-Media Tidbits.
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SESSIONS
GRAND BALLROOM
What We Believe: Two Concurrent Sessions:
Progressives: Engaging Those Outside the Political Blogosphere in Political
Discourse...and Action
Engaging those outside the political blogosphere in political discourse...and action
Is 2008 the year when every blogger is a proof point for the old battle cry that "the personal
is political"? We are seeing a tremendous amount of interest and action around political issues
and causes from bloggers who usually steer clear. They are galvanizing their readers to be more
engaged and get more involved in a variety of ways. We'll talk about some of those ways with
Twitter rabble-rouser Erin Kotecki-Vest, Momocrat Joanne Bamberger and a woman who
exhorts us all to exercise the Power of our Purse, Diane MacEachern.
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: Two Concurrent Sessions:
Conservatives: How Do We Win in November? Conservative Women Talk Brass
Tacks (and Tactics)
Conventional wisdom predicts that Republicans will have it rough in Election 2008, but the Party is
known for being expert at rallying the troops, energizing its base and defying conventional wisdom.
Join this discussion about the Republican Party's strategies to win in November and how bloggers...
political bloggers and non-political bloggers alike, can help the cause. What is the message? And
how can you help the party mobilize? RNC Online Communications Director Liz Mair will lead this
discussion, along with conservative podcaster Fausta and Elizabeth Blackney (aka Media Lizzy).
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: Video Blogging
Featuring both an informational overview and four hands-on stations, this year's video blogging
session will be both practical and personalized. Cathy Brooks will oversee a session that gives
a starts with an overview then quickly breaks into three workstations with repeating segments on
the following topics:
1. Pre-Production: Storyboarding, led by Amber Scott
2. Production: How to get good sound quality and why it matters, led by Cathy Brooks
3. Editing Workflow: templates and naming conventions to speed things along, led by Liana Lehua
TOWER SALON A
MommyBlogging: Mirrors: Ours, the Media's, Our Cultures' and Our Kids'
We blog about our own self-images a lot, there's no doubt about that. But a lot of us also blog about
our kids’ self-images. Our kids, at some point, become aware of their own physical attributes...and
the physical attributes of other people too. Often we’re in the position of reacting to negative stuff
they bring home. “You’re ugly, you’re too fat, your eyes are wrong, your color is different than your
mom's” etc.
Sometimes it’s really hard to help our kids if we don’t feel good about ourselves. Have you ever
been afraid they're actually picking up the wrong messages from your own attitudes about yourself?
And how often have you wondered how to effectively counteract the messages we all receive from
a society that markets the “super model” look to 9 year old girls and plastic surgery as a Sweet 16 present?
Children of all races, sizes, ages, and body types deserve to feel good about themselves: how they
look, and how their bodies feel. Moderator Laurie Toby Edison will talk with Tracee Sioux,
Kelly Wickham, Glennia Campbell and the collective wisdom in the room about strategies to
help our kids like themselves as they are.
Brought to you by:
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SESSIONS
HAMPTON
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: Personal Finance/Career and Sex &
Relationships
2:30 – 3:10P: Personal Finance and Career
Led by BlogHer Business contributing editor Elana Centor
3:15 – 3:55P: Sex & Relationships
Led by BlogHer Sex & Relationships contributing editor Liz Rizzo
ESSEX
Room of Your Own: Funding & Incubation Opportunities and Women Entrepreneurs
2:30 – 3:10P: Funding and incubation opportunities for women entrepreneurs
Susan Mernit will lead this session reviewing the various opportunities women entrepreneurs
have for getting both coaching and assistance when seeking funding, and getting funding itself.
3:15 – 3:55P: Women entrepreneurs
Susan will stick around and be joined by Patricia Handscheigel and other women starting and
growing their own businesses. Talk everything from business models to exit strategies. Find and
connect with other women hoeing this sometimes lonesome row.
3:45–4:30P Break
ITALIAN & Brought to you by:
COLONIAL
— SUSSEX
4:30–5:45P The BlogHer Community Keynote
GRAND The closing keynote for Day One of the conference will be live blog readings from the BlogHer community
BALLROOM
itself. Curated by Eden Kennedy, who has some experience organizing large community writing
efforts.
6:00–9:00P Welcome Reception at Ruby Skye
Brought to you by:
sm
Lear n. Ac t. Reward. Tog e t h e r.
sm
Ruby Skye
420 Mason Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
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DAY TWO : S AT U RD AY, J U LY 1 9 , 2 0 0 8
TIME
SESSIONS
7:00–8:00A Morning Yoga, brought to you by:
TOWER SALON A
8:00 Registration Opens — MEZZANINE
BlogHer Bookstore & Internet Café Opens, brought to you by
Childcare Opens
8:15–9:30A Breakfast
ITALIAN, 8:15 – 9:15A: Enjoy breakfast
COLONIAL,
GRAND about the various topics the
BALLROOM Thanks,
while sitting down with a variety of Microsoft experts. You can learn more
experts will be on hand to cover at the BlogHer Special Events page.
9:15 – 9:30A: Welcome, Day One recap and Day Two preview from BlogHer founders and brought to you by
8:30A Makeover Pavilion & Exhibitor Hall Open
9:30–10:30A Morning Keynote: HybridMedia: How we will all work together to build a
GRAND converged-media future
BALLROOM
Old media, new media. Traditional media, social media. Print, broadcast, online and mobile media.
Professionals. Amateurs. Citizens. Today's truth is that every kind of media company and media person
is trying to figure out a way to develop a hybrid model to acquire the strengths they don't already
have. Magazine empires and television networks are going online and mobile. Meanwhile, bloggers
are seeking and scoring book, print and TV deals. Put a few visionaries together and maybe we can
figure out how we all work together, what we all want from one another, how we all get paid to do
what we love -- share great stories, important news and unique information.
Lisa Stone moderates this conversation with Redbook editor-in-chief Stacy Morrison, Essence
Communications Director of Digital Development, Lesley Pinckney and Bravo TV's Senior VP of
New Media and Digital, Lisa Hsia.
10:00A Sesame Street Suite Opens, brought to you by
10:30–11:45A Break-Out Session #1
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: Women Without Children and the Blogosphere
You might be childfree by choice because you always knew you didn't want children, or it might
have snuck up on you, and you decided or work to be content as you were. Either way there are
definitely times when it's like being a fish out of water in this society...online and off. Lisa Stone likes
to say that "the only thing harder than being a mother in this culture is being a woman who chose
not to be a mother." Join Laurie White, Teri Tith, Suebob Davis and Laura Scott, who have
a lot to say on the subject!
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: Pursuing Your Passion Never Gets Old
BlogHer's recent survey data indicated that the majority of women bloggers have been at it for
three years or less. Do you see yourself blogging for life? And if so, how will you escape blogger
burnout or, perhaps worse, boredom. Join some women who are in that rare pantheon of bloggers
who have been at it five, six, seven, even eight years and more. We all know it's best to blog
what you feel passionate about, but as your life changes, do your passions? According to these
bloggers, you can always adjust your blog to match the passions in your life. Maggie Mason
moderates a discussion amongst long-time bloggers like Melissa Summers, Evany Thomas
and Sarah Brown, and uses their stories to offer practical advice on how to make sure you're
always publishing what is best for you to give, not what you think others want to receive.
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SESSIONS
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: Beautiful Blogging and Positive Posting
It's easy in today's blogosphere to focus on the controversy and the commercialism. Hey, some
people think there's a lot of that at and on BlogHer. But blogging is not just about ranting, and
blogging is not just about raking it in. Blogging can also be about love, trust, positivity, hope,
empowerment, quality over quantity, and transformations, global and personal. This session will
give you some concrete examples of bloggers trying to contribute to their blogging communities, no
matter the size or scope. Kyran Pittman hastens to tell us that "beautiful doesn't mean pretty...it's
not all about rainbows and unicorns here!" Kyran is joined by some women working on beautiful
and positive projects: Krystyn Heide from the Hope Revolution, Alyssa Royse from Just Cause
It!. Jen, the leader of the JustPost project, found on her blog one plus two and Lucrecer Braxton,
who hosts a monthly Art Slam initiative.
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: Building Traffic via Content and Community
Elise Bauer is back to give one of the most requested sessions...Building Traffic. Elise focuses on content and
community, with a dash of technology know-how thrown in for good measure. The space keeps evolving,
and so does Elise's presentation, so whether you've seen it before or not, you'll find new things to learn.
TOWER SALON A
MommyBlogging: The Commercial Momosphere: Policies, Ethics and Outreach
You probably remember last year's Blogosphere Code of Conduct meme. One code of conduct
could probably never apply to the blogosphere...but do you have a personal code of conduct?
Where are your boundaries? And do you publish them? Moreover, there has been lots of talk lately
about how marketers blow it with MommyBloggers (and other bloggers too, for that matter.) Horror
stories can be fun, but what if we could change the game? Do you have a code of conduct you
wish marketers would abide by? Do you publish it? Do you outline how to contact you and who
should bother? And let's be honest: Does your reaction totally change based on what you're being
pitched, not on the quality of the pitch? Not every MommyBlogger is interested in that dread word
"monetization." But for those who are, it will certainly be useful to talk about how we balance
community, content and commercialism. Join Lotta Svoboda, who has tried many different ways
to make money with her blog and finally found the most success as an Etsy seller, Devra Renner,
who is a firm believer that she doesn't make money with her blog, but because of her blog and
Kristen Chase, MommyBlogger and co-founder of the Parent Bloggers Network, so well-versed
in creating and maintaining policies and Dawn Meehan who joined the momosphere after
commercialism was already widely being discussed, debated and embraced...and took that ball
and ran with it. They will discuss their varied approaches to the commercialization conundrum.
HAMPTON
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: Home/Garden and Crafts/DIY
10:45 – 11:25A: Home & Garden
Led by BlogHer Hobbies, Crafts and Gardening contributing editor Debra Roby
11:30 – 12:10P: Craft & DIY
Led by BlogHer DIY contributing editor Chris Jordan
ESSEX
Room Of Your Own: Talking About War & Peace/Who Better Serves Women Like
You: Obama Or Mccain?
10:45 – 11:25A: Talking About War and Peace: How Women are changing the security debate and
creating a safer future for everyone.
Led by national security specialist and progressive activist Lorelei Kelly, along with a representative
from Mothers Acting Up.
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SESSIONS
ESSEX
11:30 – 12:10P: Who Better Serves Women Like You: Obama or McCain?
This session will be 100% Q&A between you, the women of BlogHer, and high-ranking advisors to each
presidential campaign. RNC Online Communications Director Liz Mair is on hand to speak for the
McCain campaign. Pennsylvania Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz is on hand to speak for the
Obama campaign. They are ready to talk policy with authority. No candidate better serves all women,
because women are not all alike. Come find out which candidate better serves women like you.
12:00–1:45P Lunch
ITALIAN, 12:15 – 1:45P: Join us for the BlogHer Swap Meet
COLONIAL,
GRAND 12:30 – 1:30P: Join us for Adult-Child CPR, brought to you by:
BALLROOM Recycling Room is Open!
— SUSSEX
in TOWER SALON B
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: "Coming Out" via Blog
No, this doesn't only apply to the most common meaning of "coming out", but rather to taking the
brave step to reveal and address something highly personal to your blog community. The risks are
real, but what about the rewards? Susan Mernit will moderate a discussion with some very brave
bloggers. Stephanie Quilao blogs about health and a positive body image. Making the decision
to blog a bulimia relapse risked losing a core audience who counted on her to be a voice of body
image reason. How did they react? JenB has been up front about both mental and physical health
issues on her blog. Does she feel supported...or judged? Jess Howard blogged about a suicide
attempt and felt an outpouring of support...online. But she discovered it was a lot harder for people
to interact with her in person, like at BlogHer. Finally, Sarah Dopp did launch a new project about
being gender queer. At first she used a pseudonym, although she shared the site with people she
knew. Eventually she came out and associated her real name with the site. Was there fallout? Or
none at all. Find out how coming out via blog turned out for these women, and share your own story.
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: There's More to Monetization than Advertising
It sounds a little odd coming form us, given BlogHer has an ad network, but in fact there are other
ways to make money via blogging, and this year we're going to explore some of them. Join these
bloggers who have gone off the advertising path: Stephanie Agresta is an affiliate program
expert, Kristen Hammond has become an e-commerce queen, Lynn Truong started her own
blog network and is wiling to share the rather unusual business model she came up with for her
and the bloggers who joined her, and Dana Loesch has started a local blogger network that can
co-exist with her other blog advertising (OK, yes, the last two do make money from advertising, but
the point is that they started these networks, they are their babies and a new business for each of
them...and one could probably be started in other regional or content areas, so why not by you?)
Brought to you by:
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: Tools for Online Fundraising and Activism
Marnie Webb will lead this conversation about what tools are out there to help you, the individual
blogger, raise funds and galvanize action around the issues you are most passionate about.
Catherine Connors, who has been at the helm of the BlogHers Act Canada initiative since its
inception will discuss how they created their monthly challenges, and how they keep momentum
going. Donna Callejon will highlight the flexible features of Global Giving, the online fundraising
service working with BlogHer on our BlogHers Act Mother's Day initiative and leading social media
consultant to non-profits, Beth Kanter, will talk about what has worked for her on her personal
sites and for the organizations she has worked with.
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SESSIONS
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: Photography
Author, blogger and photographer Me Ra Koh will share her tips for Enhancing Your Images and
reveal the Seven Secrets the Pros Don’t Want You to Know. On the theory that fewer subjects with
more focus is preferred we've actually got a thread up at BlogHer where we're asking for you to
vote on which aspects of photography you'd like Me Ra to focus on. Come on over and share your
opinion or at least cast your vote. Brought to you by:
TOWER SALON A
MommyBlogging: Blogging About Our Children with Special Needs
If parenting in general can be isolating, it can be more so when raising a child with special
needs. Susan Etlinger, Shannon Des Roches Rosa aka Squid Rosenberg, Kristina Chew,
Jennifer Graf Groneberg and Vicki Forman are among those MommyBloggers who are
blogging their experiences...and finding both a community...and a cause. Join them. Share your
story. Find out how, to quote Vicki, "...to embrace and treasure what makes us all different. And
the same."
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: BlogHims and Health/Fitness
1:45-2:25P: BlogHims @ BlogHer
Led by BlogHer attendee and network member Karl Erikson
2:30-3:10P: Health & Fitness
Led by BlogHer Health contributing editor Catherine Morgan and Good Health-a-thon mastermind
Kristy Sammis
Room of Your Own: BFD Blog and Feminism & Gender Meet-ups
1:45 – 2:25P: Come meet the BFD Blog community at this meet-up hosted by Monique (aka mo pie)
2:30 – 3:10P: Feminism & Gender
Led by BlogHer Feminism & Gender contributing editor Suzanne Reisman
3:00–3:15P Break
ITALIAN &
COLONIAL
ELIZABETHAN A&B
Who We Are: Can You Take Back Naked Blogging?
We all know "transparency" is a blogging buzz word. Since 2005 we have been calling personal
blogging "naked blogging", and Jory Des Jardins has been our Naked Blogging leader. But
what if you have second thoughts about how sheer your window dressings are? If you've encountered
something unpleasant because of your openness, something ugly...or even something dangerous,
you might be wondering: Can I take it back? Jory will talk to three women who have taken it back
to varying degrees. It might be as simple as setting more stringent privacy policies on all your social
application tools (and realizing that you actually can set more stringent privacy policies.) It might
be going through and masking references to real people and taking down identifiable photos. It
might be resolving not to engage in certain kinds of blogging or conversations any more. Or it
might get as drastic as trying to eradicate your online identity. Koan, Mena Trott and Tracey
Gaughran-Perez have taken some combination of these steps to get a measure of control of
their online lives that they felt was lacking...and much-needed. Were they successful at taking back
naked blogging?
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SESSIONS
CALIFORNIA WEST
What We Do: Blog to Book Redux
This session rocked the house last year, so we're bringing in more bloggers, publishers and agents
to dish about your opportunities to turn your blogging talent into a book publishing dream come
true. Ellen Gerstein from Wiley & Sons has published many a blogger's book. Neeti Madan is
a literary agent with Sterling Lord. Jennette Fulda and Rita Arens represent two different blog
to book approaches, one a memoir and the other a blogging anthology. Walk away with some
insider info and effective tactics you can employ to get yourself on the published author path.
CALIFORNIA EAST
What We Believe: Blogging Community as Healing Force
Blogging creates communities, and they can take action for the greater good. But they can also take
action to support individuals. Susan Wagner moderates this discussion with a trio of bloggers
who have experienced the healing force of a community of blog readers who hang on their every
word, and talk right back...always right when they needed to hear a voice come back out of
the wilderness. Hear powerful stories about how Susan (aka WhyMommy), Laurie Kingston,
LoveBabz and Christine (aka Flutter) feel the healing force of their blogging communities. Share
your story too.
ELIZABETHAN C&D
How We Communicate: Open Source Participation: How to advance to the next level
Hopefully our panel on why you should get involved with open source will leave you convinced you
want to get started...like yesterday. If so, this panel will take it to the next step: We'll take a look at
some very popular open source blogging platforms and show you how to start contributing to the
projects...and how to get more involved as you go along. Angie Byron will be on hand to cover
Drupal. And Automattic's "Happiness Engineer", Marianne Masculino, will cover WordPress.
TOWER SALON A
MommyBlogging: When the Road To Motherhood Is Anything But Smooth: Infertility,
Adoption and Miscarriage Bloggers
Join Lori from Weebles Wobblog, Monica Mingo, Pamela Tsigdinos and Melissa from
Stirrup Queens for a frank discussion about what it's like to realize you are not on the fast track
to motherhood. These women are in different stages of dealing with infertility issues, but there is
one common thread. They all want or wanted to become a mom, and have found roadblocks and
detours obscuring what seems to be so easy for others. Is infertility one of the last things that nobody
wants to talk about? Not in this blogging community.
HAMPTON
Blogging Birds of a Feather Meet-Ups: Queer BlogHer and Boomers & Beyond
3:15 – 3:55PM: Queer BlogHer
Led by BlogHer community manager Denise Tanton
4:00 – 4:40PM: Boomers & Beyond
Led by BlogHer Technology contributing editor Virginia DeBolt
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SESSIONS
ESSEX
The First BlogHer PhotoWalk
3:15-4:30P: The First BlogHer PhotoWalk, brought to you by Shutter Sisters
Calling all photo enthusiasts! Grab your cameras and put on your walking shoes, it’s time for
BlogHer’s first ever PhotoWalk. Tracey Clark, Karen Walrond, Andrea Scher, Jen Lemen
and Stephanie Roberts (some of the snap happy women behind the collaborative photo blog
Shutter Sisters) will be leading the group on a photo excursion around San Francisco’s picturesque
Union Square. Stretch your legs and your creativity as we walk, talk and share our passion for
photography. If you plan on joining us on our adventure please leave a comment on this post.
We’ve also got an official PhotoWalk button for your blog! Grab the code at that post, RSVP in the
comments there, and we’ll see you there.
Room of Your Own:
3:15 – 3:55P: Women of Color Bloggers
Led by Megan Smith
4:00 – 4:40P: Chicago Bloggers Meet-up
Led by Lara Colvin
4:30–5:15P Break
ITALIAN & Brought to you by:
COLONIAL
— SUSSEX
5:15–6:15P Closing Keynote: Living the Truman Show
GRAND Heather Armstrong's first book was just released in April (and she has other impending opportunities
BALLROOM
yet to be announced.) Stephanie Klein is a blogger, an author, and is now in development with NBC
working on a pilot for a series based on her autobiographical books based on her autobiographical
blog. Heather and Stephanie are the perfect people to close BlogHer '08 with a discussion about what
it's like "Living the Truman Show*." Bloggers everywhere are putting their lives online...and now into
other media too. We'll talk to them about how it feels to put yourself under that microscope. Heather
and Stephanie may live it on a bigger scale than most of us, but haven't you experienced some or all of
these symptoms?
• Parts of life get nearly fictionalized in your own head as you plan your next blog post about
events happening in real-time
• People confuse you with a character and forget you're a real human being
• As your friends, co-workers and family become more aware of your blog they either get caught
up in it all...or get more and more uncomfortable.
By blogging we sometimes put ourselves in a fishbowl. Hilarity (and sometimes other not-so-funny stuff)
ensues.
*The Truman Show was a movie from 1998 about a man who discovers his "life" is actually a reality TV
show that the entire world is watching.
6:30–9:00P Closing Reception at Macy's Union Square
Brought to you by:
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DAY THR EE : S U N D AY, J U LY 2 0 , 2 0 0 8
TIME
SESSIONS
8:45–5:00P BlogHer OpenSpace, the "Unconference", brought to you by
CALIFORNIA EAST & WEST
BLOG HER I N S E C O N D L I F E '0 8 : FR IDAY, JULY 1 8 , 2 0 0 8
TIME
SESSIONS
9:00–9:15A Welcome to BlogHer '08 from the Westin St. Francis Ballroom in San Francisco
(live from San Francisco, CA)
9:15–10:15A "Speed Dating" for BlogHers in Second Life
10:30–11:45A Second Life Break-Out Session #1: The Intersection of Blogging and Second Life
Led by Cybergrrl Oh (aka Aliza Sherman), and featuring:
Ana Herzog (aka Nancy Hill)
Gidge (aka Bridgette McNeal)
Queen Tureaud (aka Erin Kotecki Vest)
12:45–2:00P Second Life Break-Out Session #2: Second Life and Security
Featuring:
Daisy Beauchamps
Padlurowncanoe Dibou, formerly in charge of Hillary Clinton's in-world HQ and co-Founder of
MUVErs, LLC
Patty Streeter (aka Jody DeVere from AskPatty)
2:30–4:30P Second Life Activity in Exhibitor Area
4:30–8:30P SecondLife Open Mic and Party
BLOG HER I N S E C O N D L I F E '0 8 : SAT UR DAY, JULY 1 9 , 2 0 08
TIME
SESSIONS
9:30–10:30A BlogHer '08 Morning Keynote: Hybrid Media
10:45–12:00P Second Life Break-Out Session #3: SecondLife as Educational/Training Tool Featuring:
Padlurowncanoe Dibou, formerly in charge of Hillary Clinton's in-world HQ and co-Founder of
MUVErs, LLC
In Kenzo (aka Evonne Heyning, Creative Director and Interactive Producer for Amoration)
Fleep Tuque (aka Chris Collins from the University of Cincinnati)
Dannette Veale (from Cisco)
1:45–3:00P Second Life Break-Out Session #4: Using Second Life for Good
Led by Susan Tenby and featuring:
Connie Reece
Jennifer Cole and Aleja Ospina, the women behind GimpGirl.com
3:30–5:00P Second Life Activity in Exhibitor Area
5:15–6:15P BlogHer '08 Closing Keynote: Living the Truman Show
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ADELE NIEVES
Adele Nieves is a journalist, writer, blogger and speaker, focusing on politics, women's issues and race. She is Essence
of Motown's "2007 Writer/Author of the Year," for her continued hard work, literary creativity, and her efforts to improve
Michigan's literary community. Adele is co-organizer of Detroit Feminists, and an editor and contributing writer for Critical
Moment Magazine. She also writes a monthly column for Women of Color (Yo Soy Mujer!) for Think Girl Monthly, a nonprofit organization based in metro-Detroit dedicated to informing and empowering women through information and community programs.
Adele is a strong supporter of minority rights, an advocate for diversity and active within women of color/people of color communities.
She is now compiling an anthology, tentatively titled Who Cares What We Think? Behind-the-Scenes Reflections and Critiques on Gender
Roles, Women's Issues and Feminism in the 21st Century, co-partnering in a production company, Liquid Words Productions, LLC, and will
be attending Sarah Lawrence College for her MA in Women's History in the Fall of 2008. Active Blogs: A Book Without A Cover: Detroit
Feminists & The Outlet: A Creative Supply.
ADRIANNE GEORGE
Adrianne is an American Expatriate living in Europe since 2002. She's lived and worked in London and Brussels and currently resides in Sweden.
She is the founder of the award winning Black Women in Europe Blog and the Black Women in Europe Social Network.
She is also active in the Swedish and international Expatriate community as the founder of several social networks. She
also authors the JobsinStockholm.com blog and is managing director of JobsinStockholm.com, a job site for English speaking professionals
looking for jobs in Sweden.
Adrianne will be an official blogger at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August.
ALEJANDRA OSPINA
BlogHer in Second Life '08
With founder Jennifer Cole, I am the current co-director of the GimpGirl Community, an online network which supports
women with disabilities, their friends, and allies.
I'm a woman with a disability living in NYC, active in different projectsand circles, virtual and "real". You can find me on
Second Life as Aleja Asturias.
You'll find me at BlogHer online during Day 2, July 19th, 1:45-3:00 PM:
Second Life Break-Out Session #4: Using Second Life for Good
Led by Susan Tenby and featuring:
Connie Reece
Jennifer Cole and Aleja Ospina, the women behind GimpGirl.com
ALIZA SHERMAN
Aliza Sherman is considered a Web Pioneer who helped pave the way for women on the Web. She started the first woman-owned, fullservice Internet company - Cybergrrl, Inc. - and the first hybrid online/offline women's networking organization - Webgrrls International - that
at its peak had over 30,000 participants in over 100 cities around the world.
Newsweek magazine named her one of the Top 50 People Who Mattered Most on the Internet, one of 5 women on a list of 50. Aliza called
Newsweek and bitched that women were underrepresented on the list even though she could name dozens of women doing significant
things on the Web at that time. She is still pissed that the lists continue to underrepresent women's tremendous role in new media and technology.
Aliza consults companies and nonprofits about their Internet strategies - including Web 2.0, social media, microblogs, virtual worlds and
podcasting - and assembles teams to produce results while staying true to mission. She develops multimedia content for Internet, print, video,
and audio; builds online communities and social networks, and does business and organizes events in virtual worlds including Second Life.
And in her spare time, she is a pro-blogger, a mommy blogger (babyfruit.com), a freelance writer for web sites and magazines, the author
of 7 books including "The Everything Blogging Book" and "Streetwise eCommerce," an international speaker, and a wife and mom of a
2-year-old living in Alaska.
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CONGRESSWOMAN ALLYSON SCHWARTZ
Room of Your Own: Talking About War & Peace/Who Better Serves Women Like You: Obama or McCain?
U.S. Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz is serving in her second termrepresenting Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional
district, which includes partsof Northeast Philadelphia and the close suburbs of Montgomery County. From 1990to 2004,
Representative Schwartz served as a member of the Pennsylvania StateSenate. In Congress, she serves on theCommittee
on Ways and Means, which has jurisdiction over tax, trade and revenueraising measures, as well as Medicare and Social
Security. Schwartz also continuesto serve on the Budget Committee where she has distinguished herself as anoutspoken
critic of deficit spending.
Long considered a leading advocate for children, Schwartz spearheadedPennsylvania’s legislative efforts to provide healthcare coverage
to thechildren of middle-class families. Her leadership led to the creation of theChildren’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1992, which
served as the modelfor the federal plan that now provides health insurance to millions ofchildren.
In Congress, Schwartz has continued to focus on healthcare, including workingfor the expansion of federal SCHIP to cover all eligible
children. Schwartz isalso instrumental in legislative efforts redirecting the nation’s environmentaland energy policies towards energy independence and the reduction of globalwarming.
Schwartz cites the influences of her father, a Korean War veteran, and hermother, a Holocaust survivor, as the source of her commitment
to publicservice. These personal family experiences compel Schwartz to be a strongadvocate for veterans and their families and to fight for
foreign and domesticpolicies that build democracy, security, and opportunity for all people.
Schwartz earned a B.A. from Simmons College in Sociology and a Masters of SocialWork from Bryn Mawr College. She is married and
has two grown sons.
ALOLITA SHARMA
How We Communicate: Why Bloggers (Even Non-Programmers) Benefit from Participating in Open Source
Projects
Alolita Sharma has been involved with open source since the early days of Linux. She has actively promoted open source
software adoption in industry, government and developing economies for the past 12 years, working with leaders in US
and India's IT industry, government and education to enable change and transparency. She believes that the ideas of open
source can generate unbounded opportunity for the development of technology and economic prosperity in developing nations. She is cofounder of Technetra and has over 15 years in the industry. She co-created India's first open source business conference LinuxAsia, to serve
as a platform for global industry leaders to interact with India's open source players from industry, government, academia and community.
She speaks at major international conferences on open source trends and technologies. Her publications include a chapter on open source
in India in Open Sources 2.0, a regular column on trends in Linux For You and open source technology reviews in Linux Journal. She holds
a Masters degree in Computer Science from George Washington University where she also pursued doctoral studies. Her blog can be read
at opensourcebuzz.technetra.com.
ALYSSA ROYSE
As the founder and CEO of JustCauseIt.com, Alyssa Royse is part of a new media movement that uses social media to solve
real world problems. With a professional background in PR and journalism, Alyssa believes that highlighting the positive
works of people working for social change is the way to finally save the world. Her work in the non-profit world led to Fast
Company Magazine naming her one of the top 50 entrepreneurs in the world, but the thing that she is most proud of is that
she is raising a spectacular daughter who will surely make the world a better place.
AMBER SCOTT
BlogHer Open Space, the "Unconference"
As the middle child in a family of four girls, I spent most of my life observing other people and committing their every
move to memory so that I could hold it against them decades later and make them blush at social events. Fortunately, that
tendency translated well to a career in journalism, which is what I have been doing since I was 18. Nothing makes me
happier than making someone laugh or angrier than being in traffic. I enjoy waiting tables, running board meetings, having a beer on the
front porch, cooking vegan cupcakes and holding hands with my short-armed husband. I also like to travel to places my parents warn me
about and read books and magazines on the beach.Currently I spend my days revolutionizing women's media by throwing out experts and
enlisting the wisdom of regular women with extraordinary insight at Capessa.com.
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AMY GAHRAN
Amy Gahran is an info-provocateur, entrepreneur, consultant, trainer, coach, editor, and media strategist -- as well as a recovering journalist (with some lapses, it's a tough addiction). She blogs at Contentious.com , the Poynter Institute's E-Media
Tidbits, and several other places. At any given moment she is usually yammering about something on Twitter. (Although
she's probably live-tweeting BlogHer 08 on her amylive Twitter account.) When she's not busy overthrowing the journalism
and media establishments for the good of humankind, she's generally causing trouble in Boulder, CO. Or she's hanging out in her cabin in
the Rockies, where odd things happen.
ANGELA BYRON
Angela Byron is an open source evangelist, for Drupal (an open source content management system) in particular. She got
her start in both as a Google Summer of Code student in 2005. Since then, she has sought to immerse herself in the community as many different ways as possible. Her work includes coding and reviewing patches, creating and contributing
to modules and themes, testing and quality assurance efforts within the project, improving documentation, and providing
developer support on forums and IRC. Angela is on the Board of Directors for the Drupal Association, and is co-authoring the book Drupal
JumpStart, to be published by O'Reilly in fall 2008.
Professionally, Angela works as a senior web architect for Lullabot, where she helps train other Drupal developers and provides consulting
to high-profile clients such as BBC, Sony BMG Records, and MTV UK on how to build Drupal websites.
One of Angela's primary passions is talking to groups (particularly women) about the myriad of ways to get involved in open source, how
it's done, and all the reasons why it's beneficial. She seeks to spread the word about how awesome open source is, and to help get that
1.5% of women involved a lot closer to 50%. :)
ANNE-MARIE NICHOLS
Anne-Marie is a 40-something WAHM, professional blogger, freelance copywriter, and social media consultant. Besides
running several of her own blogs including A Mama’s Rant, This Mama Cooks! and My Readable Feast, she has blogged
at ClubMom, 451Press, b5Media, DotMoms, and for clients like MOTHERS at MOTHERS Book Bag. Her blog for Studio
One Networks, Citizen Mom’s Family Journal, won a 2006 webaward and a 2006 Silver Davey Award.
When she’s not showing Colorado book authors the hows and whys of blogging and social media, Anne-Marie is a community moderator
at CafeMom and a social networking consultant for Mom Central Consulting. You can learn more about her at The Write Spot.
BETH KANTER
Beth Kanter is a trainer, blogger, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of social media. Her expertise
is how to use social media to support nonprofit missions. She has worked on projects that include: training, curriculum
development, research, and evaluation. She is an experienced coach to "digital immigrants" in the personal mastery of
these tools. She is a professional blogger and writes about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social
change at Beth's Blog.
BRIDGETTE MCNEAL AKA GIDGE URIZA
In Second Life I'm Gidge Uriza and in Real Life I'm Bridgette (Gidge to friends) McNeal. I blog several places around the
digital world. My home/first blog is Live From The Wang of America. I am also a contributor on Draft Day Suit and Props
and Pans I'm speaking at Blogher in Second Life at The Intersection of Blogging and Second Life.
I'm also one of your BlogHer In World Volunteers helping you learn enough about Second Life to truly enjoy the conference. I'm
holding office hours for training on Mondays and Thursday from 8pm - 10pm at the iCNN center in Second Life and hope to see you there.
A full time professional, mother of three and blogger, I play Second Life for fun and relaxation with my husband who also has an AV. We
enjoy the social aspect, interacting with people from all over the world, as well as the vast arts community. To get a small slice of the Second
Life world possibilities I encourage you to visit my Second Life blog, which is a fashion blog (yes - cartoon fashion, you heard it here).
CAILLE MILLNER
Born in San Jose in 1979, Caille Millner was first published at age sixteen, and in 2002 she was named one of Columbia Journalism
Review's Ten Young Writers on the Rise. A graduate of Harvard University, she is the author of a memoir, The Golden Road: Notes on My
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Gentrification (Penguin Press, 2007) and coauthor of Doubleday's The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact
to Send a Classroom of First Graders to College. She's received the Rona Jaffe Fiction Award as well as prizes from the National Foundation
for the Advancement of the Arts, the National Press Club, and the New York Black Journalists Association. Currently on the editorial board
of the San Francisco Chronicle, she has also written for Newsweek, Essence, The Washington Post, and The Fader.
CATHERINE CONNORS
Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic. When she's not changing diapers or writing scholarly
articles about the characterization of motherhood in Western philosophy, she blogs as Her Bad Mother. She's also the
moderator of Her Bad Mother's Basement, a open, confessional blog-space for "unpostable" posts, the founder and editor
of Better Than A Playdate (formerly MommyBlogsToronto), a collaborative blogzine for parent bloggers in Canada, and is
a Contributing Editor at BlogHer (BlogHers Act/Maternal Health). When she's not trying to save the world through BlogHers Act Canada
and the League Of Maternal Justice, she relaxes by writing about pop culture at Mamapop and Babble and by trying to convince anyone
who will listen that bad is, indeed, the new good.
CATHERINE ORENSTEIN
Catherine Orenstein is the founder and director of The OpEd Project, an initiative to expand public debate, with an emphasis on women. She has written on culture, mythology, and power for The New York Times (where she is an occasional
contributor to the op-ed page), The Washington Post, The San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine, and Ms. Magazine,
among other places. Her opinion pieces have run on the Knight-Ridder newswire and appear in anthologies. She has lectured at Harvard, Penn, and Columbia universities, and appeared on ABC TV World News, Good Morning , America, CNN, MSNBC and
NPR All Things Considered. She is the author of Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, and a
fellow at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership. She is also an Echoing Green (social entrepreneur) fellow, for 2008-2010.
CATHY BROOKS
Cathy has spent more than two decades working in and around media and communications. It began in 1982 with a
job ripping wire copy (yes they actually still had wire copy machines) at the largest all news radio station in Philadelphia,
PA. All these years later, Cathy’s experience in media encompasses reporting, writing, editing, broadcast management,
strategy and syndication.
Cathy’s current media role brings together all of her skills in a very exciting venture – Seesmic. The fifth company of French entrepreneur Loic
Le Meur, Seesmic is an online media platform that enables global conversation using video as the conduit. At Seesmic Cathy leads Business Development. In this role she's responsible for working closely with Loic and driving any and all partnerships from technology integration to syndication/distribution of the Seesmic platform.
Cathy began working with Loic in the spring of 2007 helping develop the program for his conference, LeWeb. One of the largest and most
well-known technology gatherings in Europe, the 2007 edition of LeWeb was the largest yet with almost 2,000 attendees from 40 countries
and 110 speakers over the course of two days.
Prior to Seesmic, Cathy spent several years working with Guidewire Group – a global analyst firm focused wholly on emerging markets
and technologies. During that time, Cathy produced and hosted "I of Innovation" a weekly talk show providing a unique perspective an insight to the processes and people behind the latest technology trends. At Guidewire Cathy also led the charge for producing two of the firm’s
conferences – Innovate!Europe and Leadership Forum. In both cases Cathy was responsible for identifying and booking top speakers as well
as helping moderate and emcee the events.
Interspersed with her media roles, Cathy held several agency and corporate PR positions developing and leading public relations campaigns. Some of this experience includes several years at Blanc & Otus, and a three-year stint with Remedy Corporation.
All the while, this not-so-mild-mannered businesswoman maintained her connection to the media. She founded Other Than That Consulting
to help clients better understand how media operate, and guide them in building an effective long-term communications strategy. This work
included message development, tactical analysis and preparing key executives for press tours and broadcast interviews.
In the three years before Other Than That Consulting Cathy built and managed one of the largest, centralized Talent and Booking Departments in the cable industry for TechTV (now G4) – a national network dedicated to technology and the lifestyle that comes with it. On the
booking front, Cathy hired and managed the 15 bookers, secured big name guests such as Craig Barrett, Jeff Bezos and Scott McNealy,
and executed all planning and development for interviews from pre-interviews to developing questions and topics for the on-air Talent.
A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Cathy currently lives in San Francisco, CA.
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CHARLENE LI
Charlene is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, covering topics ranging from social technologies and media to
online advertising. She joined Forrester in 1999, after spending five years in online and newspaper publishing with the San Jose Mercury
News and Community Newspaper Company. She was also a consultant with Monitor Group in Boston and Amsterdam.She is also the
co-author of "Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies", published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008.
Charlene blogs professionally on Forrester's Groundswell blog.Charlene is one of the most frequently-quoted industry analysts and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal,
The New York Times, USAToday, Reuters, and The Associated Press. She is a much-sought after public speaker and has presented frequently
at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, and adTech.She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received a
magna cum laude degree from Harvard College.Charlene is the mother of two kids and blogs about that experience at Silicon Valley Moms
Blog (svmoms.com). She is the wife of Côme Laguë, a venture capitalist with Nueva Ventures. She is also an avid fan of reality TV shows,
science fiction, and sudoku. She lives in the Bay Area with her family.
CHRIS M. COLLINS (SL: FLEEP TUQUE)
Chris Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque) is an IT Analyst in the UCit Instructional & Research Computing department at the University
of Cincinnati. Chris specializes in developing supportable, sustainable enterprise services that integrate emerging technologies into existing and future curricula for distance learning, hybrid, and traditional courses, and researches effective
uses of social media and virtual world technology in education. She currently manages the campus-wide Podcasting and
Second Life projects at the University of Cincinnati, serves as the Second Life Ambassador for the Ohio Learning Network, a consortium of
80 colleges and universities in Ohio, and is a co-chair for the Second Life Education Community Conference. Chris also founded the Chilbo
Community on the mainland of Second Life and reports as the Education Correspondent for the Metanomics weekly webcast show about
business and policy in the metaverse.
CHRISTINE SCHROCK
A diabetic, a knitter, a cook. A writer. Using blogspace to heal myself and help others heal from sexual assault. Humor,
darkness, truth and the beauty that remains when the layers are stripped away and accuracy remains.
CLAUDIA MAR RUIZ
Owner of Viva La Vida, a healing arts practice in California, Claudia Ruiz blogs to connect Colombian nationals worldwide who often feel lost and lonely. Her blog, written in Spanish, entitled “Latina Wife Wanted” encapsulates Ruiz’ shared
story of the journey of a Latina wife, often feeling trapped in a silent and painful role as an immigrant in another country.
In March 2006, Ruiz was selected by El Tiempo newspaper in Bogota, Colombia after winning their contest for Colombian
expatriates to create their own blog. With no experience blogging, Ruiz wrote to share her passions and frustrations accumulated throughout the 10 years after she'd immigrated to the U.S where she eventually gained citizenship.
Due to almost 50 years of drug wars, guerrillas, paramilitars, and a corrupt political government, there had been a huge exodus of Colombians to other countries. People leaving their homes, their children, and their lives behind. Through her writings, Ruiz' desire was to connect
these readers who often felt wounded, but were respectful and supportive while participating in her blog.
While she’s not a journalist, Ruiz is still sending her own heartfelt messages engendering discussions about women’s issues, freedom for a
better life both economically and socially, while engaging comments from both government politicos and the people living in the local communities in Colombia. Despite the intermittent personal attacks, Ruiz has learned to use dance as her 'therapy when under attack' for her
opinions so she can keep on blogging while holding a very loyal readership worldwide.
CONNIE REECE
•Conversationalmarketingspecialistinvolvedintheresearchandimplementationofemergingmedia•Communications
professionalwithmorethanthreedecadesofwritingandspeakingexperience•Overtenyearsasghostwriter,co-author
andeditorwithoneoftoptentradepublishinghouses•Extensiveexperienceindirectresponsecopywriting,directmail
fundraisinganddonordevelopment•Principal,AustinSocialMedia•Founder,EveryDotConnects•ExecutiveDirector
ofSocialMediaClubinternational•FounderandFairyGodmother,FrozenPeaFund
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/conniereece
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CRYSTAL MCKEE
Crystal McKee is a mother, writer and wife. She was supposed to marry Jon Bon Jovi, but that got all screwed up when he
had no idea who she was. After the restraining order was issued, she began writing in a diary and it became a passion.
Twenty years later, she has been published in The Manual For Motherhood (Volume 1), 26 Ordinary Americans and writes
weekly on her personal blog, "Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper". She has also been featured in Memphis Parent Magazine.
She has no idea where she'll go from here, but she's pretty sure there won't be restraining orders involved. Hopefully.
CYNEMATIC
I'm a writer-filmmaker and recovering academic.
I've been active in Asian Pacific American issues and culture sincecollege; currently I'm on the board of directors of the
Coalition forAsian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), which works to diversifyHollywood in all forms of entertainment media,
even the web. Myacademic specializations were (not necessarily in order of importance):19th and 20th century American
literature, comparative multi-ethnicliterature, APA literature and film, and women of color feminisms. Ihold a PhD in English and an MA in
creative writing from UC Berkeley.
I've taught classes or guest-lectured at Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, San
Francisco State, RISD, UC Irvine, and UC Riverside.
You can find my writing here
my own personal blog, P i l l o w b o o k
MOMocrats,the amazingly brilliant and funny group of bon vivants/politicalprogressives who let me run with the women who
run with wolves
• my documentary film-in-progress (and accompanying non-fiction book-in-progress), WORLD ON A STRING
If asked to say which was hardest, giving birth, filing adissertation, or funding and finishing a documentary film, I'd have tosay the film.
Nine months' gestation is a cakewalk compared to years ofsitting on that egg, waiting for it to hatch!
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DAISY BEAUCHAMP
Daisy Beauchamp owns one of the longest running clubs in Second LIfe, Sanctuary Rock.
DANA LOESCH
Dana Loesch blogs at www.mamalogues.com and hosts her own talk radio show on KFTK 97.1 FM; she’s also the founder
of the St. Louis Bloggers’ Guild, one of the first of its kind in the country, and operates the St. Louis Blog Ad Network. Dana
has also written for corporate parenting communities and major-market publications. She was named the Riverfront Times’
Best Columnist of 2007 for her popular newspaper column on motherhood. She has appeared on NBC and CBS affiliates
KSDK Channel 5 and KMOV Channel 4, respectively; the Fine Living network; and speaks frequently on the subject of blogging. She and
her husband, Chris, and their two young sons live in downtown St. Louis.
DANNETTE VEALE
As a new media program manager at Cisco, Dannette Veale lives and breathes new media. In addition to producing virtual
environment events, Dannette also manages global online programs for a variety of Cisco groups—most notably emerging
markets. When she’s not traveling the (real) world as Cisco’s unofficial Second Life ambassador, you’ll find Dannette engaged in such varied hobbies as producing streaming media, designing Web sites, or watching classic films such as Blade
Runner. Outside of her daily immersion in the bleeding edge of collaborative media, Dannette’s also been known partake in such real world
activities as gardening, baking, and knitting.
DAWN MEEHAN
Dawn is a 30ish SAHM of 6 kids (7 if you count her husband). She likes writing, acting, and baking. She collects kids and
dust. She hates shoes, the sound of styrofoam, and ridiculous, poorly written correspondence from companies requesting
her to advertise for them in exchange for nothing.
She started her blog, Because I Said So, in June 2007 in an effort to make a little money from ads. Her blog rose to popularity when her silly auction for Pokemon cards on eBay went viral in August 2007.
On her blog, Dawn shares her exciting life of being a SAHM: cleaning yogurt off the TV, wiping marker off the walls, pulling her daughter
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out of the toilet, and telling her son to brush his teeth 4000 a day. "I think people read my blog because the insanity in my house makes
them feel better about their own kids and their parenting. Either that, or they read it as a form of birth control."
Because of the attention her blog has received, Dawn was approached by agents and publishers and has since written a book, also entitled
Because I Said So, scheduled to be released spring of 2009.
Dawn also contributes to the blog MamasLike, a blog that reviews WAHM businesses and products, and she recently started the blog Because I Said So Reviews where she highlights products and services from various companies.
Dawn is so honored (and insanely nervous) to speak at BlogHer. "I just hope I don't throw up on anyone."
DEVRA RENNER, MSW
Devra is an author of the under-the-radar cult hit book "Mommy Guilt" and she has been blogging at Parentopia since
2005 with Aviva Pflock (also an author of Mommy Guilt). Devra is a clinical social worker who provides consultation and
training services all over the world and is a recognized expert when it comes to soothing parental angst, both online and
off. Devra's commentary has been featured in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Babycenter, Parenting
Magazine, Woman's Day, Cookie Magazine, American Baby and many others. Devra is a featured expert on PBS Parents and a consultant
for Zero To Three. Devra is also a contributor at DC Metro Moms Blog and Loser Moms Blog.
Devra knows damn well policies and ethics are hot buttons for her. And she has been known to blog about what happens when these buttons get pushed. In addtion to bringing attention to policy and ethical issues by blogging about them, Devra makes phone calls and writes
letters. But mainly she relies on the musical stylings of Tom Petty: Listening to "I Won't Back Down" on *Repeat* until she feels all is right
with the world again.
Devra lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two sons.
DIANE MACEACHERN
What We Believe: Two Concurrent Sessions: Progressives & Conservatives
Diane MacEachern, the founder and president of Big Green Purse and The World Women Want, LLC, is passionate about
using the marketplace to protect the planet. A best-selling author, award-winning entrepreneur, and innovative thinker,
Diane has launched the only company in the U.S. focused specifically on harnessing women’s enormous consumer clout
for the benefit of the environment. Her website www.biggreenpurse.com, named "best environmental website" in 2007
by FutureNow, encourages women to green the marketplace by choosing certified sustainable products whose use or manufacture offers
the greatest environmental benefit. Her newest book, Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World, has
been called "The Big Green Bible" for the guidance it offers consumers in making lifestyle and shopping choices that will benefit them and
their environment. Her articles and speeches motivate women to take actions that will make a difference while encouraging companies to
accelerate their transition to a green economy. She helps environmental organizations engage more women as members, activists, and
donors while urging companies to meet certified environmental standards to reduce "greenwashing" and gain consumer confidence.
DONNA CALLEJON
As the COO of GlobalGiving, Donna oversees strategies related to attracting, retaining and serving GlobalGiving's
community of donors. This includes marketing, business and partner development, and development of technology and
infrastructure for globalgiving.com and over a dozen custom websites. Donna also serves on the Board of the Washington
Area Women's Foundation and previously served on the board of Business for Social Responsibility. In a prior life, she was
a senior executive at Fannie Mae, where she last ran the company's strategic planning, business development and international consulting
efforts, and prior to 1996 led the core purchase/securitization business, including marketing, product development, customer technology
and negotiated transactions. She received a B.S. in Managerial Economics from UC Davis.
EDEN MARRIOTT KENNEDY
The BlogHer Community Keynote
Eden has been blogging since 2001, when her son was born, the World Trade Center collapsed, and she lost her job. She
is grateful that life has been less eventful since then. Eden can be found at fussy.org and yogabeans.com.
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ELISA CAMAHORT PAGE
Welcome to BlogHer '08
Closing Keynote: Living the Truman Show
Elisa Camahort is a co-founder and COO of BlogHer, managing its events, marketing and corporate operations. A marketing executive with 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley, Elisa left her life in high tech product management to go online
and join the social media world, and to help companies go there too.
She co-founded BlogHer as a labor of love in 2005 with Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, and in two short years BlogHer has grown to be
the number-one guide to and source for blogs by women. BlogHer serves its mission of creating opportunities for education, exposure, community and economic empowerment with its web community, sold-out conferences and advertising network that now features over 1,200
network members.
Elisa Camahort was at the vanguard of professional and business blogging and currently writes nine blogs. She blogs at various times about
marketing, health issues, green and eco-conscious living, being a vegan, and reality TV talent shows like American Idol and Project Runway!
She’s a frequent public speaker in the areas of business blogging and online community, and has been published frequently, including her
monthly column for the Silicon Valley Metro, Silicon Veggie.
ELISE BAUER
How We Communicate: Building Traffic via Content and Community
Elise Bauer publishes Simply Recipes, the most highly trafficked food blog in the world. After a twenty year career in technology marketing consulting, Elise started Simply Recipes 5 years ago as a hobby, to keep a record of what she was learning from cooking with her parents. Over the last few years, Elise has carefully grown and nurtured Simply Recipes so that it
now reaches over 70,000 visitors a day viewing more than 4 million page views per month, and now provides a full time
income. Elise attributes much of the success of Simply Recipes to her commitment to her blog's reader experience and her steadfast promotion of the food blog community on her site. Elise recently launched Food Blog Search, a custom search engine that searches thousands of
food blogs to help food bloggers find each other and to help readers of food blogs find even more fabulous blogs to enjoy.
ELLEN GERSTEIN
Once upon a time, a young girl ran up a $500 phone bill using her Dad's account on the Source, and a believer in the
power of interactive communications was born. Since then, Ellen Gerstein has found ways to incorporate the words "online", "new media", "interactive" and now "social media" into everything she works on. With over 20 years of experience
in publishing under her belt, she is currently working as Director of Marketing at John Wiley & Sons Publishing in Hoboken
NJ. In addition to managing the world's #1 technology publishing program, she gets to work on some of the most innovative, cool and
exciting books in the marketplace, as well as with some of the best-known brands in publishing. Ellen's had the privilege to work with many
amazing authors, including, but not limited to Gina Trapani, Robert Scoble, Erin Manning, and many, many more. She's a big believer in
the power of social media and works to evangelize this throughout the organization and the publishing industry as a whole.
Prior to this Ellen worked at American Institute of Physics as an Information Specialist (which for the record is every bit as geeky as it sounds),
and held new media development and marketing positions at Hachette Publishing, Facts on File and Van Nostrand Reinhold publishers. She
is a proud graduate of The University of Albany in Albany, NY and holds a BA in European History.
Ellen's main blog is ConfessionsofanITGirl.com.
ERIN KOTECKI VEST
Erin Kotecki Vest spent ten years as a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles, Orlando and Detroit winning six Golden Mic
Awards with LA news institution KFWB. She now serves as Political Director and Election 08’ Producer for BlogHer.com as
well as contributing regularly to the Huffington Post, MOMocrats.com, and her own site Queen of Spain Blog.You can find
her on Twitter @queenofspain and make sure to ask her about her interview with Barack Obama.
ESTHER CRAWFORD
Esther Crawford (previously Esther Brady) started video blogging on YouTube while living abroad in 2006 - it began as a
way to simply share her journey with friends back home. Her vlogging style has attracted millions of unique video views and
her topics range from the struggle to lose weight, to frustrations with American politics. She was an official Google vlogger
at the CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential debate, and has been featured by an array of online and traditional media
sources including CNN, FOX News, Ad Weekly, AOL.com, YouTube, About.com, Weight Watchers (UK and US), and many others.
After documenting her weight loss of nearly 70lbs, she has become the first social media content creator for Weight Watchers, in association
with McCann-Erickson and MySpace.
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EVANY THOMAS
Evany has been writing things for her online diary off and on and off since 1995. She has also written things for other
websites (including Television Without Pity, The Morning News, and Wired), print publications (McSweeney's Quarterly
Concern, h2so4), and anthologies (Fray, Welcome to Wisteria Lane, The Ex-Files). She also wrote a handy, bed-sized book
called The Secret Language of Sleep: A Couple's Guide to the Thirty-Nine Positions, which explores the meanings hidden
inside a person's favorite sleeping pose. Evany lives in Oakland with her boyfriend, cat, dog, and one mean old turtle.
FAUSTA WERTZ
What We Believe: How To Take Names and Be Taken Seriously as a Political Blogger
Fausta Wertz was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She's a graduate of the University of Georgia and has an MBA from
Fairleigh Dickinson University. She blogs at Fausta's blog on American and Latin American politics, news, current events
and culture.
Fausta podcasts every Tuesday and Friday at 11AM Eastern at Fausta's blog talk radio.
Fausta is a featured blogger at the Star Ledger NJ Voices, and a Pajamas Media and Forbes business and finance network blogger.
GLENNIA CAMPBELL
Glennia Campbell is a mom, lawyer, and blogger from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her personal blog, The Silent I, focuses
on family travel and her life as a mom in Silicon Valley. Her family has traveled to 24 countries in the seven years since her
son was born, and her blog chronicles their adventures, both foreign and domestic. She is a contributor to Kimchi Mamas,
and is the co-founder and Managing Editor of MOMocrats. As a professional, she has been a lawyer in the high-tech and
medical research fields for twenty years.
GWEN BELL
Gwen Bell is a globetrotting serial entrepreneur. She loves starting companies and helping others do the same.
She launched her first company in Japan at age 23 (Yoga Garden). Her irreverent weekly podcast co-hosted with Patrick of
Yoga Garden, is one of the most popular in its field on iTunes. She recently wrapped up a successful campaign evangelizing
for TechStars where she led the way to quadrupling the number of female applicants for 2008 (last year there were zero
female participants, this year there are five)!
Gwen co-owns a design firm with her biz partner Paul in Berlin. Together they create gorgeous websites and paper products. Paper Karaoke
will launch a new line of paper pr0n products soon.
A techy girl about town, Gwen also knows how to unplug and have fun. She's a Kirtsy Editor and absolutely adores the women with whom
she works. She is currently available for brand and outreach consulting. She looks forward to meeting you at Blogher 2008!
HEATHER B. ARMSTRONG
Heather B. Armstrong was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee and went on to major in English at Brigham Young
University in Provo, Utah where she wrote for the unofficial student paper as well as underground music magazines. After
enduring the original dot com boom, Armstrong started her personal site, dooce® in 2001. She gained notoriety in 2002
when she was fired for her writing on dooce.
After a brief hiatus during which Armstrong got married, she resumed publishing on dooce and gained popularity from her open, honest
posts about depression, parenting and living in Utah.
Armstrong has been featured on ABC World News Tonight, Good Morning America, Nightline, CNN and the Today Show. She has also
been profiled and featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
Armstrong has won numerous awards for her writing on dooce including Bloggies for Best American Weblog, Best Writing of a Weblog,
Weblog of the Year, and Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been selected for Time magazine’s Top 50 Coolest Websites as well as
included on Forbes Top 25 Web Celebrities.
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HOLLY BURNS
Holly Burns has a British passport, an American driver’s license, and the tendency to experience a minor identity crisis
whenever people ask her where she’s from. Born in England, she grew up all over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and
is very likely scarred for life after attending ten schools before her tenth birthday. Her personal blog, Nothing But Bonfires,
traces her life as a British ex-pat in the U.S., where she is never entirely sure which way to pronounce “basil” or “tomato.”
She works as an editor for Travelocity and lives in San Francisco with her web designer boyfriend and two embarrassingly large cats.
JANE GOODWIN
I'm an empty-nest Mommy who isn't adjusting to the silence very well. After teaching middle school for many years, I quit
and am now teaching writing in a community college. I am also a pro-blogger with several clients.
My hobbies are writing, reading, listening to music, baking, sewing, and telling my children how to live their lives.
Why, yes, I am a couch potato. No, I have no desire to go to the gym, but thank you for asking.
I do not suffer fools gladly. There is a catch, though…
On my blog, Scheiss Weekly, I’m famous for giving rude and boorish people the old what-for, but in real life, I’m devastatingly shy. If you are
a stranger or a student, I can stand up to you with little trouble, but if you are a friend or someone I hope will become a friend, my backbone
is as soft and squishy as my pasty-white thighs, and I hover and tremble in the corner hoping you will say “hello” to me and include me in
your fun. I can’t ask you. I can only shake in my dowdy shoes and cross my fingers.
The Blogosphere gives me a voice, and since you can’t see me there, I can be brave. Online, we become acquainted from the inside-out,
not from the outside-in. Online, we get to know each other via personality and heart, not appearance. I think this is awesome.
JEN
Blogging is about community. There's power in that, power to elevate the conversation, to find a new path, to come together on the side of
good. Using our voices to create change, whether it's armchair philosophy or in the trenches, it matters. It matters because we are taking
the time to stand up for what we know to be true. When we come together in numbers we are saying this matters and we matter too. And
that makes us unstoppable. The Just Posts are one way to exercise this passion, a monthly roundtable of social justice issues from around
the world that can be found at my personal blog one plus two. I am also a contributing writer for MOMocrats, where we are working hard
to see Barack Obama elected this November.
I'm lucky. I believe in the eradication of chronic poverty and homelessness and I get to work towards this passion every single day. I've got
a great kid who teaches me daily about humility and joy and a partner who teaches me about adventure and a non-conforming life. And in
a few short months we'll put it to the test by packing up and leaving the US and moving to the jungle. Our plans only reach so far, the rest
is a leap of faith. We plan on getting pretty dirty and that makes me pretty happy. The rest will have to sort itself out as we go.
JENB
I started a personal, diary type blog in 2002 after discovering many other fantastic blogs. Having an audience for my
intimate disussions and inane observations ended up being realy fulfilling. On my panel "Coming Out" via Blog, I will talk
about my experiences with sharing intimate and very personal parts of my life on my blog and how writing those types of
posts has affecting me and my readers. Even though I now do some writing for other blogs, the personal blog continues to
be my primary and most personal outlet.
I have a degree in Communications Studies and here I am, communicating! I have worked in web content, communications, and marketing. I love gardening, gossip magazines, and the craziness of online community, I can often be found on twitter even after bedtime. I also
contribute on www.wecovet.com, www.alphamom.com and occasionally on www.realmental.org. The blog that launched a couple of ships
is still at www.jenandtonic.ca.
JENNETTE FULDA
Jennette Fulda was born weighing 8 pounds 5 ounces, but eventually tipped the scales at 372 pounds before losing almost
200 pounds through diet and exercise. After she lost half her weight, she ran a half marathon and wrote a book called
Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. She chronicles her life and weight loss in the popular blog, PastaQueen.com The book
and blog have been featured on NBC’s Today Show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press,
Women's Health, Glamour and other media outlets. For more information and bonus material related to the book, visit halfassedbook.com
When she is not working her ass off, she works in Indianapolis as a web developer.
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On the "Blog to Book" panel I'll be happy to talk about how my blog led to a book deal, the ways I used my blog to promote my book,
and incentives I used to motivate my readers to get the word out. I can also answer questions about how to set up a book web site, how
to plan your own book release party, and how to sell autographed books from a corner of your apartment with PayPal and a big box of
bubble mailers.
JENNIFER COLE
Jennifer Cole, a 30 year old woman with a disability, has been the Founder, Co-Director and Resident Geek of GimpGirl
Community since 1998. Jen (known on-line as JennyLin) has a long history in both disability and technical concerns. She
ran a statewide Internet Service Provider with friends in California from 1997 to 2003. She was accepted in to and has
been involved in the Disabilities, Opportunities and Internetworking Technology (DO-IT) Program at the University of Washington since 1994. She was also on the Disabilities Task Force for the Mayor of Tacoma, Washington as the elected Treasurer during her
senior year in high school. She loves doing research, organizing data, and intermittently studying human biology and ecology, along with
reading and watching tons of anime with her husband.
JENNIFER GRAF GRONEBERG
Jennifer Graf Groneberg lives and writes at the foot of the Crazy Mountains in a 70-year-old log cabin with her family
and their B pets: a dog named Baby, a cat named Bitty, and a horse named Blue. Her most recent book is Road Map to
Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years With Down Syndrome (NAL/Penguin, 2008), a memoir
that provides emotional support and practical advice to parents of children with disabilities. She blogs about special needs,
motherhood, and family life at Pinwheels, http://jennifergrafgroneberg.wordpress.com and is a regular columnist for mamazine.com and
ParentDish, the AOL Living parenting site.
JENNIFER L. POZNER
Jennifer L. Pozner is founder and executive director of Women In Media & News (WIMN), a media justice group dedicated
to increasing women’s presence and power in the public debate through media analysis, education and advocacy. She
runs WIMN’s POWER (Perspectives Of Women Expand Reporting) Sources Project, which helps increase the diversity and
quantity of women’s voices appearing in the public debate. Through WIMN’s multimedia lecture series, Pozner has spoken
on women, media, politics and pop culture at dozens of colleges across the country (contact WIMN for booking information). She is also
managing editor of WIMN's Voices, the popular women’s media monitoring group blog.
Pozner’s journalism and media criticism has been widely published in corporate news outlets (eg., Newsday, Chicago Tribune, Boston
Phoenix) independent media (eg., Ms., The American Prospect, Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture), new media (eg., AlterNet, Salon,
HuffingtonPost), and anthologies (eg., BitchFest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages Of Bitch Magazine, Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century, The W Effect: Bush’s War on Women), among others.
She has appeared as a commentator on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News Now, Comedy Central's “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” NPR, Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now!," and several documentary film… and, because she's a sucker for punishment, she's gone
head to head with some of the most blustery boys of cable news, including Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough.
JESS HOWARD
Jess Howard is a single mother living on Vancouver Island with her four children. She has been writing at drowning in kids
for four years. She writes about her struggles with depression, anxiety, motherhood, seperation and housecleaning.
Drowning in kids has been featured in several local papers on Vancouver Island and in Canada's national newspaper The
Globe and Mail. Jess also founded RealMental with Leah Peterson in 2007 and is a regular contributor to the site.
JILL MILLER ZIMON
Jill Miller Zimon is an award-winning freelance writer, blogger and political commentator. She has appeared as a regional
roundtable panelist for Cleveland public radio and television as well as on CNN, BBC and other broadcast outlets. She
provides commentary and presentations to a variety of audiences on the intersection of blogging, journalism, politics,
women and other topics. You can listen to or watch her appearances here.
Jill is a co-blogger at The Moderate Voice, which contributes to Newsweek.com’s The Ruckus, and has authored her own blog, Writes Like
She Talks since 2005. In Fall 2007, Jill participated in the Plain Dealer/cleveland.com blog experiment, Wide Open. It was the first paid
collaboration between mainstream journalism and independent political bloggers of which Jill was the only woman included (out of a total
of four bloggers).
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More recently, Jill has covered the Cleveland Democratic Primary Debate, Women, Action and the Media (WAM!2008) conference at MIT
and the First Ladies Symposium on media coverage of presidential candidates' spouses. This spring, she presented at Case Western Reserve
University's Collaboration Technologies workshop, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's 2008 Annual Ohio Business Women's Conference and Expo, and the White House Project's first Go Run! training in Ohio.
For eight years prior to starting her journalism career, Jill used her joint degree in law and social work at a large children and family mental
health agency. She is a New England native and has a joint bachelors degree in government and sociology from Georgetown University.
She has lived in Northern Ohio for nearly 20 years with her husband and three school-aged children.
JOANNE BAMBERGER/PUNDITMOM
Joanne Bamberger is better known around the blogopshere as PunditMom, the blog she writes about the intersection of
motherhood and politics. A writer and attorney for over 20 years, Joanne also blogs about politics at MOMocrats and is a
Contributing Editor for Politics & News at BlogHer. You can also find Joanne's writing at The Huffington Post, MomsRising
and DC Metro Moms.
A former op-ed writer for The Washington Examiner, Joanne is a freelance writer who has contributed to numerous publications and outlets,
including The Washington Post, MSN, Marketplace Radio and XM Radio, POTUS '08. Joanne also spent a decade as a TV and radio
journalist and, unfortunately, still remembers the day when stories were shot on film.
JODY DEVERE AKA PATTY STREETER IN SECOND LIFE
Second Life and Security
Jody DeVere, aka Patty Steeter Second Life, is the CEO, President of AskPatty.com, Inc. and has more than twenty-five years of achievement
as a successful entrepreneur focused on sales and marketing leadership including ten years developing web based business solutions across
diverse industries. DeVere is currently the President of the Woman's Automotive Association International , the premier women's organization for women automotive professionals, a member of the Car Care Council Women's Board , a member of the California State Advisory
Board for SkillsUSA, member of the board of directors of United Spinal Association www.unitedspinal.org and a member of the SEMA
Businesswomen's Networking Association.
DeVere manages Motorability Island a 7 sim car culture complex for United Spinal in Second Life as well as her own two locations in Second
Life AskPatty Automtoive Advice and Wonderland Cardin a SL Certified Female Friendly dealership. www.motorability.com
She has conducted seminars with the National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA.org), National Independent Automobile Dealer Association (NIADA.org), Car Care Council Women’s Board, BlogHer.org, SEMA, SEMA Business Women’s Networking Association, and the
Association of Automotive Internet Sales Professionals. She has been an expert guest on many radio shows, including Motor Trend Radio,
Car Concerns, Oprah & Friend’s Radio Network on XM, Greenstone Media’s Radio Ritas,and National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation”
with Marti Barletta.
JORY DES JARDINS
Author and media strategist Jory Des Jardins is president of global sales and business development for BlogHer, Inc. Since
co-founding BlogHer in 2005, Jory has developed strategic relationships with Fortune 1000 brands and led innovative
campaigns to integrate contextual marketing and advertising into communities of women interested in every topic, from
food, health and family to business, finance and technology.
As an author and media strategist, Jory regularly writes on women's business issues, blogging, relationships and pop culture for such
publications as Fast Company, The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Inc. Magazine, and her blog, Pause. She's also written for Sports
Illustrated for Women, Working Woman, USA Today Magazine, Good Housekeeping, The New York Times and edited for The New York
Times Syndicate and Time Inc.'s Custom Publishing Division. Jory has helped high-technology start-ups Pluck and Rojo launch successful blog
syndication initiatives and produced Third Age's successful network of bloggers. In addition to her personal blog, Jory blogs about personal
career growth and entrepreneurship on BlogHer.
KALIYA HAMLIN
BlogHer Open Space, the "Unconference"
Kaliya Hamlin is a facilitator of high quality participant driven interactive conferences that have recently in the tech community come to be known as unconferences. She regularly facilitates events for professional technical communities and is
hired to work with community leaders to help put on amazing events. With a natural talent for event design - navigating
the options for which processes to use to achieve community goals, she draws on a "tool box" that includes over a dozen
different methods. These are used to augment open space technology which is at the core of every unconference. She blogs about the techniques and processes in the field at unconference.net.
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She got her start facilitating in the user-centric digital identity community with the first Internet Identity Workshop. She is a subject matter in
the field that includes OpenID, Information Cards and Vendor Relationship management tools to help citizens have more tools and control
over how to share information about themselves online. Her work has also involved the cultivation of Identity Commons is a collaborative
community working together on addressing the range of social, technical and legal issues that arise with this emerging identity layer of the
web. She blogs on these topics at IdentityWoman.net.
She is a the lead producer and facilitator of a conference for women called She's Geeky that brings together the diverse range of women in
technology groups for shared agenda free conference. The next conference will be in NYC in the Fall and on the West Coast in the Winter.
KELLY PHILLIPS ERB
Kelly Phillips Erb is a hip urban mom living in Philadelphia – if you define hip as constantly being covered in yogurt, dragging strollers onto
the bus and never quite having time to dry her hair.
Kelly also works as a tax attorney. She blogs about tax and tax law at taxgirl.com. She started writing her blog years ago as a hobby (yes,
tax as a hobby, it could be worse) and found that there were not many attorneys writing user friendly tax blogs. Taxgirl became popular and
Kelly eventually moved the blog to b5media, where she now serves as Editor for the Business Channel.
Kelly has served as a source for a number of recent tax articles including pieces for Forbes magazine and Dow Jones, as well as a guest
on an upcoming documentary about taxes. She pens a monthly tax column, Capital Gains, for the Legal Intelligencer, the nation’s oldest
legal journal. She also answers tax related questions in her role as Tax Guru at filife.com, a personal finance site owned by Dow Jones with
assistance from the Wall Street Journal.
Before taxgirl.com, Kelly blogged about trying to balance her legal career with motherhood at lawmummy.com. She has added several
blogs over the years including an entertainment blog and a lifestyles blog for b5media and two community and school related blogs. She is
also a contributing writer to This Mommy Gig.
Kelly has promised her husband no more blogs. So she’s currently working on a second novel and a book about taxes. She also drinks a
lot of coffee.
KELLY WICKHAM
From education to coffee, blogger Kelly Wickham's passions are as diverse as her background. The self-proclaimed
'Mocha Momma' is a high school administrator and highly sought after speaker at state and national edu-events. She is
an educational consultant for a change agency known as Focus On Results and coaches principals in leadership efforts.
Kelly's personal blog Mocha Momma is laced with stories of her family, her amateur photography, her daily interaction
with students, and even her passion for food, shoes and curly girl hair products. She also writes for Flawed But Authentic and is working
on a new project for the a Sunday Magazine while desperately trying to get that first novel out of her soul. She's got a transaction lined up
with the devil for this to happen.
KIRRILY ROBERT
Projects
Kirrily Robert has been blogging since 1999 and involved in open source software since 1993. She currently works as
community director for Freebase.com.
KOAN
Koan is someone for whom personal blogging - naked blogging - was a significant mechanism to helping her move through, and beyond,
some significant changes in her life. But those benefits did not come without some cost - and now Koan, as an individual, as a legal entity,
no longer exists. She has a different identity, and will be attending BlogHer '08 in that identity. But she'll be participating on this panel as
Koan, and hoping to relay some of the experience and insight she gained about the benefits of naked blogging... and the potential costs...
and some ways to minimise the latter and maximise the former.
As a sincere personal favour, she asks that anybody who recognises her from the past please address her by the name she'll be showing on
her badge, and not as Koan - and that people don't link the two names on e.g. a blog post or comment. There are personal safety reasons
behind this request, which she'll explain in private, if asked.
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KRISTA NEHER
Krista Neher is currently the VP Marketing at Photrade.com where photographers can share, protect and make money from
their photos. In addition to strategic marketing, PR and social media Krista manages www.hyperphocal.com and http://
blog.photrade.com. Prior to joining Photrade Krista spent 5+ years at Procter & Gamble in a career covering sales, marketing and finance. Krista is a CFA Charterholder and an active member of the American Marketing Association. She also has
a personal blog at www.kribaby.com.
KRISTEN CHASE
Kristen Chase took the plunge into motherhood via a surprise pregnancy and is now knee deep with a four year old daughter, 18 month old son, and baby due in October. Those pregnancies were surprises too.
In her former life she was a published textbook author, musician, and college professor all of which she’s traded for a
satisfying new position as wife of a pilot and National Guardsman, and stay-at-home-parent turned business owner and
professional blogger currently residing in Atlanta. Kristen is the author of the blog Motherhood Uncensored, as well as Mominatrix, a sex
column for parents at The Imperfect Parent. Additionally, she is co-founder of Cool Mom Picks, a cheeky shopping blog for discerning moms,
as well as Parent Bloggers Network, a blog marketing agency connecting bloggers with PR professionals and business owners.
Her blogs have been recognized in various publications, including the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Real Simple, and Time, and she was
recently featured along with several other mom bloggers on NBC's Today Show.
KRISTEN HAMMOND
In 2006, Kristen was inspired by a year of unemployment, a baby and excessive "daytime drama" watching to start her
own internet smart ass maternity tee business.Baby Brewing was born. Because she hasn't had a coherent thought since that
fateful day in February 2005 when her oldest was born, it took Kristen over a year to be inspired by her own blog name
and make "Mommy Needs a Cocktail" shirts. She wore the very first one to Blogher last year and the avalanche occurred.
Kristen blatantly used her readers for their brilliant ideas to expand her line of maternity tees and to create a whole new kids line. One
picture standing beside Mr. Big with her "Drinking for Two" daddy maternity tee and Kristen is up to her eyeballs in work.
When she's not pulling her children off the top of the fridge or coming up with the next fabulous tee in her basement, you can find Kristen
sharing stories of her half-assed parenting at Mommy Needs a Cocktail, cheating on her blog at Twitter, planning Mommy Needs a Cocktail
Party trunk shows, writing with her friends Angie and Trena at Mommy Needs a Review, contributing to DC Metro Moms, mompreneuring
it at Mommy Needs a Business at Work It, Mom and blogging about motherhood with her In Real Life sisters.
KRISTINA CHEW
I'm an Assistant Professor of Classics at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey, and also Co-Director of the Honors
Program and the Advisor for Prestigious Fellowships. And, I write the weblog Autism Vox in which I get on my (digital)
soapbox about the latest issues, science, research, and more about autism and disability. My son Charlie is 11 and autistic
and I'm writing a book, An Unexpected Childhood, about life with autism and "difference."
I also translate Latin poetry and am curently working on the Eclogues of the ancient Roman poet, Virgil.
KRYSTYN HEIDE
Krystyn Heide is the heart behind hopeREVO.com, a revolution that began when she decided to hide encouraging notes
around New York City. This simple act inspired other people who heard about it to do the same in their cities.
Krystyn grew up in a family of left and right brainers -- architects, musicians, software engineers, and artists. Her mixed up
genes made her fall hard for web design, and upon entering the industry she soon became a self proclaimed CSS junkie.
With a decade of experience designing for big brands and new media companies, she is equal parts style architect, user experience advocate and Squarespace evangelist.
Former speaking engagements have included exploring the beauty of your own online space, positive posting, and learning CSS.
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KYRAN PITTMAN
Kyran Pittman was working toward respectability as a poet when she started screwing around with blogs and gave birth
to her bastard love child, Notes to Self.
Notes is a cherished personal space in the midst of domestic life. It's a blank piece of typing paper in an old Underwood.
It's a corkboard covered with family photos and milestones. It's a set of field notes on motherhood, marriage, and America,
written by an expatriate Newfoundlander who wakes up every day wondering how she came to live in any of those mad realms.
It can be whatever it makes up its mind to be. She spoils it that way.
In return, Notes has launched Kyran's career as a freelance essayist, with publication credits in Good Housekeeping magazine and the
Toronto Globe and Mail. It also provides her with a merry way to make lips curl in certain literary circles.
Kyran blogs shamelessly for Flawed But Authentic, AOL's WalletPop, and is the Mind, Body, Spirit Editor of Kirtsy. She is working on a first
collection of essays, and is writing a coming-of-age memoir, So Far For Beauty.
LAURA S. SCOTT
Lately, I’ve been spending all of my time on the "Childless by Choice Project," a research, book, and documentary project
on the childless by choice in North America. In the sixteenth year of my childfree marriage, I asked “How and why do
people, like us, ‘opt out’ of parenthood? Is it a choice? Or, is it a process?”
Fiction was a welcomed departure from my previous writings, which included business and lifestyle articles, profiles, opeds, and newsletters, but I felt urgency around the childfree questions, so I set the scripts aside, bought a video camera, and hit the road.
Fueled by curiosity and introspection, I traveled to ten American states and two Canadian provinces to survey the childless by choice and to determine why, for millions of North American couples, the question "When should we have kids?" had morphed into "Should we have kids?"
I recently signed a deal with Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group, to write a narrative nonfiction book on the Childless by
Choice Project. The Childless by Choice documentary is currently in development, fiscally sponsored by The Southern Documentary Fund,
and produced by Salt Whistle Bay Productions, an independent production company I founded three years ago.
I was also delighted to serve as co-contributing editor of the Purple Women and Friends™blog and an occasional contributor to Unscripted,
two online sites serving the childfree community.
When I am not writing or producing, I can be found tasting wine or eating my way through some foreign locale, or jeering at bad dialogue
in a dark movie theatre.
LAURIE KINGSTON
I live in Ottawa, Canada. I am a mother (to two boys, aged 5 and 10), spouse, activist, writer (my book is coming out
in spring 2009!), sister, friend and so many other things. I've also been blogging through breast cancer since January,
2006.
In December, 2005, as I was getting undressed one evening I found the lump that would lead to a diagnosis of breast
cancer. After a gruelling treatment regimen (mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation), I joyfully returned to work , only to be diagnosed
three weeks later with a metastasis (spread of the cancer) to my liver.
As my oncologist recently put it, “sixteen years ago, women with liver mets only had a matter of months to live,” yet here I am, miraculously
in remission and continuing to defy the odds. I have now had four clean (no sign at all of cancer in my liver or anywhere else) CT scans (my
first was in June 2006 and my most recent was last May, 2008) and the same oncologist has declared himself to be “amazingly optimistic”
and going so far as to call my results “spectacular.
I started my blog to reach out to friends and others who might want to know what it's like to be diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer at
38. It has become so much more, as I find myself embraced by a vibrant, warm, caring and fun online community. They say that writing is
transformative and I believe this to be true. My blog has also helped me through a number of important personal transformations over the
last couple of years.
LAURIE TOBY EDISON
I blog with Debbie Notkin at “Body Impolitic”. We talk about body image issues in the broadest sense. I live in San Francisco. I’ve published Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes (edited and text by Debbie Notkin) and Familiar Men: A Book
of Nudes (edited by Debbie Notkin, text by Debbie Notkin and Richard F. Dutcher). My photographs have been exhibited
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in many cities, including New York, Tokyo, Kyoto, Toronto, Boston, London, Shanghai and San Francisco. My solo exhibition “Meditations
on the Body” at the National Museum of Art in Osaka featured 100 photographs. I recently completed Women of Japan, clothed portraits
of women from many cultures and backgrounds. I’ve begun work on a life- sized nude portrait project. There will be an exhibition of photographs from all 3 projects at the Minato Center in Tokyo in June.
LAURIE WHITE
Laurie White is a writer, photographer, and perpetual eldest child from the small but mighty state of Maryland (plus five
important formative years in Southwest Ohio.) A lifelong writer, blogging saved her life in the spring of 2005, when she
stumbled across a link to TypePad in a post-breakup haze and LaurieWrites just...happened (not a name she'd pick now,
but at that time it seemed to get the point across.)
Blogging about music, politics, pop culture and all things random about daily life next door to the nation's capital led to a gift of a gig as a
contributing editor at BlogHer, where she currently writes about pets and family. Other words appear at AGirlMustShop.com, and a bunch
of DC-area print publications. Last fall, thanks to all of these online shenanigans, she began a master's program in online journalism after
a decade as a counselor, social worker and occasional freelance writer. A year, a trip to Vietnam and many hysterical deadlines later, it's
safe to say it's all about words, pictures and people from here. (And yes, Mom, there will (hopefully) be health insurance.)
Laurie still lives in D.C.'s Maryland suburbs, where she bosses around/loves dearly a menagerie of family and friends of all ages and is
addicted to her Nikon D80 and Canon PowerShot630, Flickr, hazelnut coffee, music, Bravo, New York City, all manner of magazines, the
Internet, good food, the idea of the ocean, travel to anywhere under the sun and little dogs. Her next projects include the very-much-in-development food and culture site ringtumdiddy.com and an anthology of essays on the impact of Lloyd Dobler on way too many GenX women.
LESLEY PINCKNEY
Morning Keynote: HybridMedia: How we will all work together to build a converged-media future
Lesley Pinckney is the Director, Digital Development for Essence Communications Inc. Responsible for strategic partnerships
and multi-platform development, she plays an integral role in the development of the brand’s online content and the creation
and distribution of original programming produced by the magazine’s new multimedia division, ESSENCE Studios. With a
broad range of online and television expertise, Pinckney oversaw the launch of the magazine’s highly successful first-ever
interactive online reality dating show “30 Dates in 30 Days”. Prior to joining ESSENCE, Pinckney was a Vice President at MTV Networks’
Tempo and was previously Vice President, Talent Development & Casting at Spike TV. In that position, she handled all aspects of talent relations, negotiated contracts and managed schedules and logistics for several major television awards shows including the GQ Men of the
Year Awards, Video Game Awards, Autorox and live event coverage at the Superbowl. Prior to her positions at MTV Networks, Pinckney
was an Account Director and Project Manager at several top interactive agencies and was responsible for developing websites and online
marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Pinckney holds a bachelor’s degree in religion, and minored in philosophy from Hunter College in New York City.
LIANA LEHUA
Asa web developer and producer, Liana Lehua has helped create anddistribute internet content for some of Hollywood's
heavy hitters. Mostrecently, Liana's projects have included creating the structure and UIfor Damon Wayans' latest internet
project, WayoutTV.com and developingand consulting with Keenen Ivory Wayans on upcoming projects still indevelopment.
Using podcasts, social media, blogs, and websites, Liana iscurrently working with actors, actresses, and productionprofessionals to make available and distribute their works includingreels, live stage broadcasts and enhanced website features andfunctionality to
their fans, agents, casting directors, and studioheads.
Liana currently lives in Santa Monica, CA, with her MacBookPro, Canon 30D, and several gaming consoles. She commutes to SanFrancisco
where she produces the hit show and blog, Girls Gone Geek (www.girlsgonegeek.tv).
LILA KING
LilaKing is a senior producer for CNN.com. She leads the site’s user participationefforts, including overseeing CNN’s usergenerated news Web site, iReport.com.
Since coming to CNN.com in 2001, King has reported and produced several multimediastories on a wide range of topics
in international news, working to integrate new technologies into storytelling presentations. King produced many of the
online interactive maps and audio slideshows that distinguished CNN's Peabody Award-winning coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. In 2006 King launched iReport, CNN’s highly successful citizen journalism initiative, and led the editorial development of iReport.
com, the user-generated news site that launched in February 2008.
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Lila started her career at CNN as a webmaster, putting to use the technical skills she developed as a freelance radio producer who wanted
to put her work online. She graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in Comparative Literature and Philosophy.
LINDSAY FERRIER
Before starting the mommy blog known as Suburban Turmoil, Lindsay Ferrier couldn't get published to save her life. Today,
three years later, she writes a Suburban Turmoil newspaper column for the alt-weekly Nashville Scene, pens the blended
family blog for Parents, American Baby and Family Circle Magazines, and has written a chapter for the upcoming Penguin/
Putnam anthology, Walk This Way: Introducing the New American Family, edited by Rebecca Walker.
In her pre-mommy days, Lindsay was a television reporter and anchor and later wrote and produced programming for CMT and the Hallmark Channel. She has teenage stepdaughters, ages 15 and 17, a four-year-old daughter, and a one-year-old son. And no, she doesn't
regret for one second leaving the world of television news.
LISA HSIA
Lisa Hsia is Senior Vice President of New Media and Digital Strategy, Bravo. She oversees Bravo’s programming opportunities in new and emerging media, including wireless, interactive TV, electronic sell-through and VOD. Hsia is responsible for
all technology alliances, content and marketing partnerships, as well as managing Bravo’s portfolio of linked digital assets
and broadband properties.
Working at Bravo since 2005, Hsia has supervised the launch of Bravo shows on Itunes and three mobile carriers, six wireless websites, the
first live voting on TV ever on three platforms (online, mobile, cable remote), the first advertiser-sponsored one-screen ever for “Top Chef” on
Time Warner, an interactive ticker, a mobile storefront and many original mobile marketing and mobisode initiatives. The “Project Runway”
wireless web site was recently nominated for a Webby Award in the news and entertainment category.
Prior to joining Bravo, Hsia was Vice President at NBC News since 2001, supervising “Dateline NBC,” the “Today Show,” and NBC News
Productions. During her tenure at NBC News, Hsia was one of three news executives responsible for coverage of 9/11 and Iraq war coverage, two Olympics, the seamless transition of Tom Brokaw to Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News,” the introduction of a new “Weekend
Today” anchor team and the creation of “Democracy Plaza” for the 2004 Presidential Election. All shows remain #1 in their time slot.
She has had a long career as a producer of independent feature films, documentaries for PBS and in news, where she is the recipient of six
Emmy Awards.
Hsia graduated from Harvard University with a degree in documentary filmmaking. She is the recipient of the Michael Rockefeller Fellowship and the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University.
LINSEY KROLIK
Linsey Krolik is a technology, media, and business lawyer and blogger in Silicon Valley, California. Linsey has operated
her part-time solo law practice since 2004 (from her house...and Starbucks), providing services to a range of clients,
from small businesses and start-up companies to established, large corporations, and covering a variety of businesses,
including microprocessors, computer hardware, software, Internet, wireless, blog, and medical device companies. Before
starting her practice, Linsey was Corporate Counsel for ARM, Inc., a United Kingdom-based intellectual property company and worked
for a variety of tech companies in the Silicon Valley, including Palm, Inc., OmniSky Corporation and 3Com Corporation. Linsey holds a
combination JD/MBA degree from Santa Clara University School of Law with a concentration in High Technology Law and is a member
of the California State Bar Association. She especially loves working with bloggers and start-up businesses (Go momprenuers!) with their
legal issues.
Linsey is also a twin mom (plus one more makes three kids aged 4 and under), is a twin herself, boot camp addict, cancer survivor, copresident of her twins club, Gemini Crickets Parents of Multiples of Silicon Valley, and board member of her kids' co-op preschool. She
wishes she could find more time to blog, but tries her best to keep up at Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Me Too You, Whereas, Mothers with
Cancer, Mad About Multiples, and Darling Hill.
LISA STONE
The originator of BlogHer, journalist and blogger Lisa Stone leads product development and works across the organization as CEO to advocate for bloggers and partners that fulfill our vision. Before BlogHer.com and BlogHerAds.com, Lisa
helped launch three sponsored blogging networks: American Lawyer Media| Law.com's legal blog network (2004),
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Knight Ridder Digital's Thatsracin.com (2005), and Glam Media (2005). Previously, while executive producer and Editor in Chief/VP,
Programming for Women.com (acquired by iVillage in 2001), Lisa launched an 18-channel network and helped grow it to a Top 30 site,
overseeing all original content programming and newsletters, including a team of 25 and an annual budget of $3 MM. She launched
successful online networks and interactive programming for many national brands, including Hearst and Rodale magazines, E! Television/Online, HBO's Sex and the City and Bloomberg. Her team's best-known work included Bachelors of Silicon Valley, The Women.
com | Bloomberg Index, R U A 10? and Majority 2000, an election initiative with Good Housekeeping, Gallup and CBS Good Morning
America. Lisa has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Oakland Tribune, Publisher's Weekly and Frommer's,
among other publications. She is the first internet journalist awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University. Lisa's personal blog,
Surfette, began as an extension of her 2004 convention blog for the Los Angeles Times. Lisa also blogs on BlogHer, often on politics and media.
LIZ MAIR
Room of Your Own: Talking About War & Peace/Who Better Serves Women Like You: Obama or McCain?
Liz Mair serves as the Online Communications Director with the Republican National Committee, where she is responsible
for leading blogger outreach efforts, contributing to eCampaign and communications strategy, and producing content for
the GOP.com blog. Prior to joining the RNC in December 2007, Liz was an independent political consultant, columnist and
blogger, writing for publications including the Seattle P-I, the American Spectator and the New York Sun, as well as at her own site, lizmair.
com. She has consulted for a variety of candidates for public office and political organizations, both in the US and in the UK, where she
lived for ten years. Liz was previously a corporate lawyer in London and holds an MA from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a
Certificate from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband.
LORI
MommyBlogging: When the Road To Motherhood Is Anything But Smooth: Infertility, Adoption and Miscarriage
Bloggers
I'm a Work-at-Home Mom of two who survived the fires of infertility and adoption. I love dark chocolate, mojitos, and the
Denver Broncos. My overarching quest is to live more mindfully.
I blog about adoptive parenting, politics and spiritual matters at Weebles Wobblog.
And I tell our family-building stories at Drama 2B Mama.
LOTTA SVOBODA
Lotta Svoboda believes that the best way to get through life is by keeping a sense of humor, and surrounding yourself with
fantastic people. She tries to do both at her blog Mom O Matic. Blogging over the past 2 years has helped Lotta to lose 40
pounds, deal with being a medicated mommy and start her Etsy shop; Mom O Matic’s Automat. She’s super thrilled to get
this chance to speak about herself in the third person and can’t wait to see you all at BlogHer08.
LOVE BABZ
I have a big life full of all sorts of twist and turns. I couldn't make this up if I tried.
I am a mother of 4 children we adopted. I hold a BS in Marketing and MPA public administration. I was elected to local
office twice. I have taught on the college level. I have made films and taught television production. I stood in the Oval office
with then President William Jefferson Clinton recieiving an award for running an amazing school readiness program. I am
a felon, convicted of a white collar crime. I served time in a federal prison camp. I am getting divorced after 12 years of marriage. Yep even
I can't fathom my life. Thank God for a healing blog community.
LUCRECER BRAXTON
Lucrecer started the Art Slam after attending a few poetry slams and being inspired by the poetry community. She loved how
people from different backgrounds came together and shared what was on their minds which was often raw and uplifting
emotion. So, Lucrecer figured, why not an Art Slam for people who loved words, art and being real as much as she does.
The Art Slam represents an exploration in art and journaling. Getting out what is in your mind and acceptance of your own
creativity, spirit and presence.
Lucrecer created a few simple rules to participate in the Slam:
1. You can not under any circumstances remove, rip out or accidentally lose a page in your journal. There are no mistakes when you
art journal, only inspirations. What you may see as a mistake or not good enough is most likely just the beginning of something big. So
keep it...keep it ALL!
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2. There is no "falling behind" with your journal. Creativity and inspiration hits people at different times. So, if you do not feel like creating or one of the projects does not inspire you to create, don't worry about it. Move on with your life.
3. You are not allowed to compare your journal to someone else's and talk about how much you suck. You don't suck. Thank God we
are all individual and have different ideas. Being a copycat is so boring. Be an individual!
4. Finally, you must have fun. What I love the most about my journals is that they allow me to be free and be me. They are a creative
sanctuary. A place for me to experiment, mess up ON PURPOSE and observe life. After all, life is the art and you hold the key to how
much you decide to enjoy it.
Simple as that.
LYNN TRUONG
Lynn Truong expected to be just another regular worker bee aspiring to climb the corporate ladder quickly and swiftly. Fresh
out of college she went to work for an ad agency and learned the ropes quickly. Then she moved on to the advertising and
marketing department of CBS/King World, creating national ad campaigns for The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil, Wheel
of Fortune, and Jeopardy. After a few years Lynn decided she didn't like corporations...or ladders, so she left to find something with a shorter commute and more creative atmosphere.
Shortly after, Lynn was recruited to join a new women's online publication, Who Is Isabella? Even though the project was short-lived, she fell
in love with working in a small team to build something big. She also saw the huge potential in community blogging sites.
With two other partners, Lynn created Killer Aces Media, a new blog network with a groundbreaking revenue model for bloggers. Her
experience in advertising has been advantages in finding optimal monetizing strategies for their blogs. Their first and flagship site, Wise
Bread, is proof that their model works, and that blogs can get premium ad rates like any big mainstream publication.
MARGARET MASON
Margaret Mason is author of No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog, and Founder of Mighty
Mighty Media. She publishes the shopping blogs Mighty Junior, Mighty Haus (launching conference week), and Mighty
Goods, which was one of Time Magazine’s Top 50 Cool Sites of the Year. Her personal site Mighty Girl has been around
since 2000. Mason lives in San Francisco with her husband and son.
MARIA NILES
Maria Niles is CEO of ConsumerPop Marketing which helps companies with branding, brand management, market research and social media creation and use. Prior to founding ConsumerPop in 2005, Maria led successful marketing efforts
at companies such as Kraft Foods and Campbell's Soup. Recently Maria has helped a range of organizations and companies better understand their customers and clients through custom research. Also, Maria has helped companies to create
and implement social media efforts including the Let It Out Blog™ for Kleenex® brand tissues.
Maria earned a BA in Political Science from UCLA, an MA from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Michigan. In
addition to writing about consumer marketing, music, television, pop culture, politics and dogs, among other topics, on her personal blogs,
Maria is a Contributing Editor for BlogHer where she has written about Business, Career & Personal Finance, Real Estate, Entertainment &
Books and currently writes about Life and Politics. Additionally, Maria frequently speaks at conferences about social media and marketing,
and most recently spoke at the MIT Media Lab Digital Life and Consumer Electronics Lab Fall 2007 Meeting. Maria is happy to speak to
you about any of these topics or anything else of interest to you, anytime at twitter.
MARIA YOUNG
Maria Young has begrudgingly accepted that she's what most call a mommy blogger although Immoral Matriarch encompasses so much more than what it's like to be a 23 year old student & S@HM to two young daughters. She dreams of being
the next Diablo Cody or Stephanie Klein, but her tendency to be a realist [READ: pessimist] prevents her from dreaming of
that too often.
Maria enjoys looking at Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, shopping for sneakers and naughty tee shirts, not washing her hair, getting tattooed and
eating until she's too bloated to wear pants (look for the overweight wild haired woman in the shirt with obscenities across the chest, stuffing
her face with something fried). She lives in Wilmington, NC with her girls, husband, and two dogs.
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MARIANNE MASCULINO
Marianne was born in Germany, yet grew up in exotic locales like Elizabethtown, KY and Houston, TX. She now happily
resides in San Francisco as a Happiness Engineer. Marianne has an affinity for useless celebrity facts and makes a mean
white chocolate bread pudding. A designer at heart and by trade, she’s joined the Automattic team to sprinkle happiness
among the WordPress community.
MARILYN PORTER
Marilyn is a 30-something stay at home mom to two boys and one new baby girl and lives in Reno, Nevada. She blogs
just about every day over slackermama . com about parenting, marriage, blogging and life. She also reviews products,
books and anything that catches her fancy over at slackermama reviews. Marilyn just recently started a blog for moms who
use cloth diapers called Cloth Diaper Mamas. As if that weren't enough, she is also a new contributor over at Blissfully
Domestic, talking about babies and pregnancy. She even blogged, once upon a time, for 451Press about reality TV, Desperate Housewives
and parenting websites.
This will be Marilyn's third BlogHer conference and she is STILL feeling a little nervous about all the fabulous women who will be there and
interacting with them. But, like the previous two conferences, she's not going to let her nerves stand in her way of having a great time. She's
looking forward to sharing some of her ideas with other introverted bloggers out there.
MARNIE WEBB
Marnie Webb has spent the last twenty years working to help nonprofit and social benefit organizations use technology
to acheive their mission. She is co-CEO of TechSoup and has worked closely with TechSoup's NetSquared project. She
speaks and writes on technology, social change and serendipity at a variety of places. You can find out more about her
professional background on LinkedIn. You can find out more about her at ext337.org.
ME RA KOH
How We Communicate: Photography
I didn't find photography.
Photography found me.
And then it healed me.
I started as a writer.
For 10 years I worked on one book, Beauty Restored: Finding Life and Hope After Date Rape. The heart of this book was to be a message
of hope to women and their husbands/boyfriends, parents and friends. I wanted them to know they were not alone in their pain. It is based
on my own painful experience of being date raped in college.
Almost ten years later, on March 20th, 2001, the first day of spring, I birthed two babies; my beautiful, firstborn, Pascaline and Beauty
Restored. When Pascaline was three months old we hit the road and for the next 18 months did over 50 National TV Shows and Radio
Interviews. While my little one slept in the backs of churches and colleges, I was up front sharing my story and hoping one woman would
feel hope again.
After two amazing years on the road, Brian and I were pregnant with our second. His name was Aidan, our little fire. While in TN for a
week long speaking tour I started experiencing abdominal pains and three weeks later our baby Aidan's heartbeat stopped.
After losing Aidan, I couldn't speak or write and sought refuge in Brian and Pascaline's love. During those times of grief, I picked up a
camera. Pascaline's innocence was precious from every view point. I found myself working to capture her story: the times she couldn't stop
giggling, the times she curled into the safety of daddy's arms, the asleep time, the fussy and frustrated times, the first time she played with
a yellow balloon...
Friends and family started noticing the photos and asked me to photograph their kids. Soon brides were contacting me for their weddings.
MELANIE NELSON
Melanie Nelson writes at Blogging Basics 101, Don't Try This at Home, and Bloggy Giveaways. She also writes a monthly
column on blogging at 5 Minutes for Mom.
Melanie originally started blogging secretly at Don't Try This at Home. However, as comments started coming, she became
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addicted to the comment crack and went public with friends and family in an effort to drive more traffic to her site. Not one to hoard the
adrenaline rush of comments, she realized the need to share the daily how-tos of blogging so others could attain nirvana as well: Blogging
Basics 101 was born.
Melanie has both a BA and MA in Technical Writing. At the time she was studying, her major seemed perfect for her: she is extremely detail
oriented and she has knack for explaining things step-by-step. Now, having lived a little and tried more creative avenues, technical writing
seems a bit boring. However, it still stimulates her mind because of the research involved. It has come in pretty handy while writing Blogging
Basics 101, too.
Melanie has two children that challege her to step away from the computer and parent once in a while. They have to promise to leave
comments, though.
MELISSA
Bloggers
Melissa is the author of the infertility and pregnancy loss blog, Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. It started as the
space she wished she had found when she was going through treatments for the first time and has evolved into hub of
activity and information--from the newly-diagnosed to those parenting after infertility or adoption or living childfree after
infertility. She is the keeper of a categorized blogroll of over 1300 infertility blogs and writes the daily Lost and Found and Connections
Abound, a news source for the infertility blogosphere.
Her infertility book, The Land of If, is forthcoming from Seal Press in Spring 2009. When not writing, she is raising her twins and baking a
lot of bread.
MELISSA SUMMERS
Melissa Summers is the editor of Mighty Junior, a shopping site for kids, and a columnist for AlphaMom. Her personal
website, Suburban Bliss, attracts thousands of readers each day. Summers is a sought-after expert on blogging, who has
been interviewed by the Today Show, the New York Times, and the Detroit News, among others. She lives in Detroit with
her husband and two children.
MENA TROTT
Mena Trott is Co-Founder and president of Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type, Typepad and Vox. Named one
of Fast Company's "Fast 50 for 2004," PC Magazine's "People of the Year" for 2004 and one of the MIT TR35 for 2004,
Mena has been involved in the weblogging space since she began publishing to her own weblog, dollarshort.org, in early
2001. She speaks regularly at industry conferences — having appeared at DEMO, The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things
Digital" and TED.
She lives in San Francisco with her husband and Co-founder of Six Apart, Ben Trott and her daughter, Penelope.
MICHELLE MITCHELL
Blogging from Alaska, I started Scribbit at the pestering of my tech-junkie husband in June 2005 and have since worn off
the letters on my keyboard as proof of my inability to shut up. I will blog until I die or until I can snag a job as a travel
writer which would be sweet.
Many years ago when I wore shoulder pads and bangs of unusual size I graduated from Brigham Young University with
degrees in English and journalism and worked as an editor, writer and research assistant. Now I have four children, two girls and two boys
ages 14 to 6, and I write about motherhood in Alaska with recipes, crafts, activities and giveaways mixed with stories of life in the Last Frontier.
Scribbit has won awards from the Anchorage Daily News and University of Alaska Anchorage, where I’ve also picked up a couple awards
for my creative writing (though I’d argue that all writing is creative) and I enjoy freelance writing and editing on the side when I’m not sewing
on cub scout patches, picking Silly Putty out of the carpet or looking for lost hamsters. While Scribbit is my only blog I’ll sometimes break
away to guest post at places like Design Mom, 5 Minutes for Mom and Problogger and Scribbit has been featured in several newspapers
and magazines around the U.S. such as the Anchorage Daily News, the Denver Post and the Wall Street Journal.
MITCHELL BAKER
Projects
Mitchell Baker, Chairman, Mozilla Foundation
As the leader of the Mozilla Project, Mitchell Baker is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide col(Continued on next page)
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lective of employees and volunteers who are breathing new life into the Internet with the Firefox Web browser and other Mozilla products.
Baker was born and raised in Berkeley, California, receiving her BA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and her JD from the Boalt Hall
School of Law. Her law career included working for Sun Microsystems and Netscape. She has also sat on the board of the Open Source
Applications Foundation.
Baker has been the general manager of the Mozilla project since 1999, helping shape the license under which Netscape's source code
was released. In 2003, she became president and founder of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to openness and
innovation on the Internet. In 2005, Baker led the creation of Mozilla Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. Baker
served as as CEO of the corporation until January 2008, when Mozilla’s rapid growth encouraged her to shift her focus back to the scope
and mission of the project. As Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, Baker continues her commitment to an open, innovative Web and the
infinite possibilities it presents.
TIME Magazine profiled Baker under “Scientists and Thinkers” in its 2005 TIME 100. She has also appeared on “The Charlie Rose Show”
and “CNN Global Office” to discuss open source software and the Firefox phenomenon.
MONA GABLE
Since May 2005, Mona Gable has been a political blogger for The Huffington Post. Her posts on the 2008 presidential
election and on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy have been picked up by numerous websites, from ABC News.com to The
Guardian to The Drudge Report. In addition to blogging, she is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared
in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, Health, LA magazine, Child, and the San Francisco
Chronicle. She is a contributor to the new Seal Press anthology “The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers At the Intersection of Motherhood
and Social Change.” Her essays have also been published in two bestselling anthologies, “Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood,” and “A Cup of Comfort for Mothers and Daughters.”
Since 2004, she has taught creative nonfiction and personal essay in the Writers Program at UCLA Extension. She lives in Los Angeles with
her husband and two children.
MONICA MINGO
MommyBlogging: When the Road To Motherhood Is Anything But Smooth: Infertility, Adoption and Miscarriage Bloggers
My name is Monica Mingo. My father killed my mother and then himself in our family home. I'm a cancer surviver and I suffer from infertility. Despite all of this...I have a FABULOUS life!
Yes...infertility is hard. VERY hard. BUT...some folks make it out to be their ENTIRE lives. And, if that's the case, life is gonna suck. Seriously. I
don't think my family and friends need to tiptoe around me when the talk turns to babies and parenting. I want to share in their joys because
I know they will reciprocate when the time comes that we are blessed.
I'm not sitting around woe-is-me-ing it. I'm living life and, I have to admit...I'm pretty good at living life well and always having a good time.
I don't know how to translate this other than leading by example and passing off as much positive energy as possible.
My name is Monica Mingo and I'm infertile and FABULOUS. Amazing combination isn't it? LOL!
MORRA AARONS-MELE
For years, Morra Aarons-Mele has specialized in online political campaigns and blogging, and in particular, on mobilizing
women online for political campaigns and activist projects. She is a blogger and political consultant who is also a graduate
student at the Harvard Kennedy School where she specializes in women and leadership. She writes for BlogHer.com, the
Huffington Post, and guardian.co.uk. Morra is also a frequent media commentator.
Morra’s Internet marketing experience spans politics and the private sector. Before starting her own consultancy, Morra was Vice President
of Interactive at Edelman in Washington, DC, where she founded that firm’s online public affairs shop, widely considered the leading team
in among large agencies. During the 2004 Presidential Election, Morra was the Director of Internet Marketing for the Democratic National
Committee, where she oversaw online fundraising, online organizing and marketing. Previously, she worked in the same capacity at the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Before coming to Washington, Morra worked in various roles at leading online companies. She managed iVillage.
com’s award-winning public affairs program in New York, then transferred to London where she managed marketing and public relations
for iVillage UK. Morra has a degree in Political Science from Brown University and a Master’s from the Harvard Kennedy School. Morra is
active in local politics, and represented Washington, DC’s ANC for Ward 2B. She is married to Nicco Mele and lives near Boston.
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NANCY HILL
Writer, speaker, consultant, and peace activist, Nancy Hill, calls Tucson, AZ home, but since July of 2006 her Second Life
life has become a second home where her alter ego, Ana Herzog, runs a business, coordinates CODEPINK SL as an international chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace, is a building and texture nerd currently working on Womens Center an
Open Space gathering and networking island that will have its grand opening on the Equinox this fall, and of course - has
a blog - My Life As an Avatar.
Nancy is currently working on a book about her experience as the proxy in a Munchausen by Proxy tainted childhood. Her projects and
changes to contact or blog information can be accessed via nfhill.com.
The theme that runs throughout her diverse interests is the semiotic creation of meaning, identity, and context that she explores from an anthropological perspective. Her blog, Virtuality covers these proto post modern interests.
NEETI MADAN
Neeti Madan is an agent with Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Her books run the gamut from the ultra-commercial to the cerebral.
She's drawn to memoir, journalism, history, pop culture, health, lifestyle, women's issues, multicultural books and virtually
any intelligent writing on intriguing topics. Recent books include Hubert’s Freaks: The Rare Book Dealer, the Times Square
Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus by Gregory Gibson; Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary 18th Century
Family Moved Out of Slavery and Into Legend by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina; and New York Times best-seller Hungry Girl: Recipes and
Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World by Lisa Lillien.
Neeti is on the lookout for the types of books she loves as a reader--page turners that keep her up until 3 AM, thoughtful writing on important
issues that interest her, and fun and quirky books that make her laugh.
NELLY YUSUPOVA
Nelly Yusupova is the CTO at Webgrrls International, the founder of DigitalWoman.com, and the Chapter Leader of New
York City Webgrrls.
She is an Internet expert and strategist and is a Wall Street Journal “Woman on the IT fast track”. She has been featured as
a tech expert on NBC’s Today Show, in INC Magazine, in Newsday and is an Industry speaker about careers in technology, building community and the power of networking.
She earned a BS in Computer Science and is fluent in PHP, MySQL, Java, ASP, JSP, Oracle, Perl/CGI, HTML, JavaScript, Unix scripting,
Telnet, FTP, UNIX.
NICOLE SIMON
Nicole Simon is a European Social Media Specialist and probably best known for her cruel to be kind feedback and her
interviews. Due to her extended experiences from small business to enterprise as well as on the net, the 37 year old from
Luebeck is a well known face not only in the German net sphere.
She is a sought-after business sparrings partner, especially for businesses who want to get into social media as well as
startups who need an outside check of ideas and strategies. She loves to bring different communities together and helps them learn from
each other.
She also runs the German Girl Geek Dinners, co-moderates the forum Global Business Women on Xing and serves as advisory / jury member for several European conferences like next08, the Web 2.0 Expo Europe and startup competitions.
And of course you can find her on twitter as well as on Friendfeed.
PAMELA MAHONEY TSIGDINOS
Bloggers
At 29 I learned I might have some infertility issues. On and off for the next 11 years (while working full time and getting a
master's degree) I tried both conventional and unconventional methods to conceive. Clomid, Laparoscopies (two), IUI, ICSI
IVF (several times), acupuncture, yoga for fertility, raspberry tea, chiropractic adjustments, Chinese herbs, fertility herbal
blends. Diet changes. Lighting candles. You name it, I tried it. When it became evident that no amount of effort would produce a baby, my
husband and I reluctantly got off the infertility treatment roller coaster. When I’m not working with startups in Silicon Valley, I spend time on
my blog Coming2Terms -- and the book I'm writing called Silent Sorority. Both give voice to what it's like to live with infertility in a fertile world.
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PAMELA MERRITT
Pamela Merritt blogs as Shark-Fu at AngryBlackBitch.com and is a contributor to the Shakespeare’s Sister blog. Pamela is
a staff writer for RH Reality Check and a featured contributor on National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Tell Me More” with Michel
Martin. Her work has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, on Salon.com and featured in Salon.com's Broadsheet.
Pamela serves as PAC Chair for PROMO (Missouri’s Statewide LGBT Equality Rights Group), is a mentor through Big Sisters
and teaches various classes at several shelters in St. Louis, Missouri.
POLLY PAGENHART
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was educated at big public universities nearby (Berkeley; B.A.) and afar (Minnesota; M.A.). I
was scheming to be an American Studies & Women's Studies professor, but ducked out of academe, after a number of years of grad student
and post-grad student teaching, to become a freelance writer/editor. I'm very happy now.
I started writing the blog Lesbian Dad in earnest a little over a year after I became a parent -- my kind of parent, a mix of mama and papa.
I'm a "social" parent, rather than a "biological" one, and my (female) partner carried and delivered both our kids. Also, to put it in the
vernacular, I wear the pants in the family.
I had written an essay for the anthology Confessions of the Other Mother (Beacon, 2006), and wanted a venue in which to continue to
explore those ideas, toward a book project. I knew few other women in my parental position, and wanted to gather them to me. The blogosphere taught me quickly: If you write it, they will come!
Online I found many more kindred spirits than I would have ever imagined existed, not just in North America but in the UK, the EU and Australia as well. The camaraderie that has developed via the blog has not just supported, but greatly influenced both my writing andparenting.
I'd hate to have to do either without the community I now know online.
RITA ARENS
Rita Arens authors Surrender, Dorothy and is a contributing editor for BlogHer and Cool Mom Picks. She writes about parenting, politics, work, writing, marriage and the blogosphere. Reviews for products and services are covered at Surrender,
Dorothy: Reviews.
Rita's first book, parenting anthology Sleep Is for the Weak (a BlogHer book) will be released from Chicago Review Press
in September 2008. Rita's writing has also appeared in business magazines and literary journals, and her blog has been covered by Businessweek online and the Kansas City Star.
SABRINA PARSONS
Sabrina Parsons is currently CEO of Palo Alto Software where she has recently launched a new product, Email Center Pro.
She was a principal co-founder of Lighting Out Consulting, which helped Internet companies realize their online marketing
potential.
Prior to co-founding Lighting Out, Sabrina was Sr. Producer at Epinions.com. As Epinions.com’s first employee, she conceived, designed and implemented Epinions.com’s affiliate/partner program, leading an engineering, web design, and marketing team to
the successful implementation of one of the most powerful partner programs on the web today.
Before joining Epinions.com, Sabrina was the Director of Online Marketing for Commtouch Software (CTCH). She launched, product managed, and developed online strategies for Zapzone Network, a global email service provider for webmasters and the SOHO market. Prior
to working at Commtouch Software she was the Online Marketing manager for enCommerce, now a part of Entrust Securities (ENTU). At
enCommerce Sabrina oversaw two web site re-designs and managed all online marketing activities.
SARAH BROWN
Sarah Brown is the host and creator of the Cringe Reading Series, and the editor of Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems,
and Abandoned Rock Operas (Crown, 2008). She has been published in Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The McSweeney's
Humor Anthology and Things I Learned About My Dad: Humorous and Heartfelt Essays edited by the creator of dooce.com, and online at
Gawker, McSweeney's, and The Morning News. She has been writing online at her personal website, Que Sera Sera, since 2001. She
was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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SARAH DOPP
Sarah Dopp has been blogging for ten years. Currently, she maintains Dopp Juice (a personal blog about being a creative
professional) and Genderfork (a photo blog that explores androgyny and gender variance). She's also a website developer,
technical writer, and project manager in the tech industry, and she keeps her hair remarkably short. Sarah lives in San Francisco.
SHANNON DES ROCHES ROSA (A.K.A. SQUID ROSENBERG)
I have been blogging about autism and parenting since July 2003, initially to provide a pressure release valve during the
emotional thunderstorms that followed my son's autism diagnosis, and while my husband and I sifted through the various
autism therapies, treatments, and cures!! being offered at the time.
My original title was "The Adventures of Leelo the Soon-to-Be-Not Autistic Boy and His Potty-Mouthed Mom," if you can
believe it. But five years is practically a geologic era when it comes to autism information, approaches, and awareness, as well as my own
attitude. I have long since turned my energies away from theoretical and unproven "cures" and focused my attention on the cute, sweet,
challenging boy of the present.
We have had access to some of the best autism therapies, support, and approaches available. I continue to blog largely because I feel it is
my obligation to document Leelo's progress for other families and professionals who either cannot afford or get their school district to pay
for the help we have, or who may not have considered some of the methods we use.
I also firmly believe that blogging can make a difference in the real world. Readers of my blog have funded equipment for our school district's occupational therapy program, helped my daughter Iz raise money that was hand-delivered to an education project in Cambodia,
and contributed hugely to the content and success of the Can I Sit With You? book/blog project that I run with Jennyalice from jennyalice.
blogspot.com.
My blog is also my sole personal journal, and as such is not always tuned to the autism channel.
SHANNON GLASS
I'm not really a writer or speaker, I just play one on the internet.
I'm 40, a working single mom with teenage twins-a boy and a girl. There. That's really the most interesting part already.
Most everyone knows me by the name "Monty"...and when I meet online friends in real life I actually answer to it. I author
The Daily Bitch blog which is about nothing and everything, and I DJ a weekly live radio show, Friday Night Live, playin' all the music you
forgot you liked.
My kids are frankly awesome; my son is severely disabled and challenging but he's taught me a million lessons on patience, love, kindness,
and the bubble-light feeling that laughter brings to a person's soul.
In my 17 minutes of spare time per week, I like to read and...well, that's really it.
I'm terribly shy, frequently blushy, and tend to be the girl on the fringes observing everyone else.
SHANNON LOWE
Shannon Lowe writes at Rocks In My Dryer, a blog about parenting, faith, and whatever else strikes her fancy. She's also
a BlogHer Contributing Editor (Mommy/Family). She's been published in Good Housekeeping, Parent & Child Magazine
and Chicken Soup for the New Mom's Soul. In February, she traveled to Uganda with Compassion International to live-blog
their child-advocacy efforts.
Shannon lives in Oklahoma with her husband and four kids (ages 3 to 11). When she's not pounding away at her laptop, she loves watching Lost, starting (but seldom finishing) craft projects, and looking for any excuse to use semicolons.
SHAZIA MISTRY
I started creating websites in 1998, yes, back when <table> was not thought of as a swear-word! I've been from "dotcom"
startup to design firm to corporation, and now I am a work at home mother of 3 boys, blogging at Adventures in Motherhood.
I work with many different blogging platforms, including WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Textpattern, as well as many forums
and online shopping cart system. I like to think that I offer "solutions", instead of just website support; offering clients an appropriate and complete system for their projects. I offer tutorials and general blogging how-tos on my web development blog at shaziamistry.com.
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I was born in the tiny Caribbean island of Trinidad, but currently I live in Toronto, Canada, aka "the great white North", and yes,
I often think I'm crazy for leaving my island paradise!!
SHIREEN MITCHELL
tions.
Shireen Mitchell is known for her provocative and insightful style ofengaging audiences. She speaks with energy
and enthusiasm on the widearray of topics that she covers. She focuses on new trends intechnology and social
media for the nonprofit sector, advocates,educators, administrators, as well as corporate and governmentinstitu-
As an early adopter (Geekette '84), she has morethan twenty years of technology, human services, and non profitexperience.
She has combined information and communication technologies(ICT) with policy, advocacy, and education to support a range
ofcommunities and organizations. She is a strong advocate for the peoplewho have not been included in the recent advances in
technology andmedia. Whether through financial challenges or gender and racial bias,approximately one in five people are being left
behind in the surge ofthis information age.
As an author she has written “Gaining Daily Access to Science and Technology” in the book 50 Ways to Improve Women’s Lives
and “Access to Technology: Race, Gender, Class Bias" in the publication >The Scholar and Feminist Online. Shireen has written
articles including “What Does Tech Have to Do with Women's Rights” and continues to blog about women, tech, policy, and media
issues.
Ms.Mitchell speaks on topics about innovative uses of media and technologyand the impact on communities across the country. She
has appeared onradio shows such as NPR's Tavis Smiley, "Digital Gap Among Minority Children”and presents on various topics
including “How Technology Savvy SecuresEconomic Stability.”
STACY MORRISON
Stacy Morrison was named editor-in-chief of REDBOOK in July 2004, and under her direction the magazine and
website have found new purpose as a vibrant guide to a woman’s grown-up life and all that’s in it. This repositioning was awarded the FOLIO: General Excellence award in 2005, and in 2007, a Clarion Award for General
Excellence. The magazine was also nominated for a National Magazine Award in Personal Service in 2007.
Morrison has 17 years of editorial experience, specializing in launches and repositionings. Before taking the helm at REDBOOK,
Morrison was executive editor at Marie Claire, where she spearheaded the magazine’s award-winning advocacy projects. She
was also previously the founding editor in chief of the venture-funded design magazine ONE (which garnered 3 Ozzie Awards for
design in its short lifespan), and editor in chief of Modern Bride, which she repositioned in its 50th year, bringing it to its highest
circulation and revenue levels in its history. She was founding managing editor of both Time Out New York and Condé Nast Sports
for Women, and before that an editor at Mirabella for four years.
As a journalist and an advocate, Morrison has dedicated much personal time and editorial space to the issue of domestic violence,
which affects 1 in 3 women in America. REDBOOK’s 2007 feature “You Can Save a Woman’s Life Just By Asking How She’s Doing” was nominated for the prestigious National Magazine Award for Personal Service. Morrison has been honored many times
for her advocacy work, including Bottomless Closet’s Golden Hanger Award (2007), The Vital Link Award (2007) and the Safe
Horizon/Liz Claiborne Champion Award (2008).
Morrison is a single mom who lives in Brooklyn with her four-year-old son, Zack, and writes a blog about her normal/not-normal
life, “Something About Stacy” on redbookmag.com.
STEPHANIE AGRESTA
Stephanie has more than 13 years of experience in the industry. She started her career with iVillage and has
taken prominent sales, marketing and business development roles with Internet powerhouses including Barnes &
Noble.com, Register.com, SpaFinder, Foxtons and Commerce360. She is an expert in online marketing, affiliate
program management and web2.0 strategies, an industry speaker for trade show and panel discussions, and has
been quoted in major publications such as Crain's Business News, Realtor Magazine, Revenue and ClickZ. Affiliate Karma is her
new outsourced affiliate program management company. Her blog is: http://www.internetgeekgirl.com/
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STEPHANIE KLEIN
A celebrated author, photographer and personality, Stephanie Klein's unique perspective on life, relationships,
family, and strength of self have made her a multi-media tour de force. She is one of the Internet's most popular
icons, with stephanieklein.com recently ranked one of the most powerful blogs in the world by London's The Observer. In addition, Klein's site has been featured on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Styles section, where
she was named amongst "the top 1 percent of all bloggers." Klein's rise has been chronicled everywhere from 20/20 to the TV
Food Network, and her blog (stephanieklein.com) is part of the syllabus of several universities. On a typical day, over 75 countries
access her blog. Klein's critically acclaimed first memoir Straight Up and Dirty has been published internationally, and her recently
released prequel, Moose: A Memoir Of Fat Camp has garnered attention from media like The Today Show and USA Today which
featured Moose as one of the top six MUST SUMMER READS of 2008. Klein is a frequent contributor to print, television, and radio,
and her photography has been heralded as "poignant" and "bold." All the rooms, suites, and corridors of the Hotel Gansevoort
in New York City's Meat Packing District display Klein's photography.
Recently signing with Creative Artists Agency, a top talent agency in Hollywood, Stephanie is entering another phase to broaden
her voice. She is in discussions and development on various scripted and alternative television ventures as well as bringing Straight
Up and Dirty to prime time and Moose from book to film.
Born in New York in 1975, Klein graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University in 1997 with a B.A. in
English and a concentration in writing. She currently lives with her husband and twins in Austin, Texas.
STEPHANIE QUILAO
For New Year’s 2008 on my blog Back in Skinny Jeans, I came out about a bulimia relapse. What made this
a toughie was that I am blogger who for the last 2-1/2 years has focused on healthy and holistic ways to lose
weight, and yet behind the scenes I was engaging in an eating disorder, something contrary to that healthy message. Yes, big pickle indeed!
Prior to my confession, my history with Bulimia was already well known so that part was no secret, however, I am big on walking
my talking, and this situation was so contrary to my own feelings of blogger integrity. I'm saying one thing to my audience, and
doing another behind the scenes. I take the whole authenticity thing to heart, maybe too much.
As bloggers, there is a personal/public threshold as to what we disclose or not, but my bigger problem was feeling (at the time)
that I could not continue blogging about the subject I blog about when I’m deep in a relapse and recovery. So, I came clean to
my audience to not only be that person of authenticity I want to be, but to also see how they would react and still accept me as
a respected member of my blog niche. This was a pinnacle point in the history of Back in Skinny Jeans because at worst I was
prepared to shut the blog down, and at best, I would learn something about my audience.
SUEBOB DAVIS
I take happiness seriously. To me, life is a hilarious adventure. That's what I am trying to express on my blog.
I write about health care during the day for a Fortune 50 corporation. I write for a newspaper nights and weekends.
SUSAN ETLINGER
Susan Etlinger began writing about autism and special needs both to document her family's experience and to
offer practical resources for families, teachers, therapists and friends of children on the autism spectrum.
She has been quoted on subjects related to autism and politics in The New York Times and The San Jose Mercury
News, and is a regular contributor to BabyCenter’s MOMformation and The Silicon Valley Moms blog, where she
writes on behavior and development from the parent’s perspective.
Susan lives in San Francisco with her husband J. and five-year-old son Isaac, who is a natural comedian and believes that rhyming,
elevators, cheese crackers, Dora the Explorer and YouTube represent the ninth through thirteenth wonders of the world, respectively.
SUSAN MERNIT
Room of Your Own: Funding & Incubation Opportunities and Women Entrepreneurs
Susan Mernit is the co-founder of People's Software Company, a start-up building interactive local community
platforms, a BlogHer contributing editor on Sex & Relationships , a former exec at Yahoo, AOL, Netscape and
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Advanced Internet, and a dedicated blogger. She is also an evangelist for the 2008-09 Knight News Challenge ; talk to her about
applying for grants to build open source community projects that support news, discourse and the commons. This summer she is in
Boulder, CO, incubating her new company at TechStars, but home is the Bay area--in fact, she is going to be looking for housemates
for the fall.
SUSAN NIEBUR
Susan Niebur, known to many as WhyMommy from Toddler Planet, is a 35 year old cancer survivor and active
mom of two little boys. Just writing those words makes her grin, as she spent last BlogHer in the chemo ward,
sick and pale. That weekend was the beginning of a yearlong journey battling inflammatory breast cancer with
the help and company of the internet – and she owes a debt of gratitude to the 400+ bloggers who joined Team
WhyMommy, 500 supportive Twitter-ers, and thousands of other visitors who kept her company every day. She is trying to repay
this debt by building the new support community MothersWithCancer.com, a place where everyone is welcome and no one is
judged. She invites you to visit and meet some amazing women. Before she got sick, Susan built a career in space science policy,
fulfilling a childhood dream of working for NASA. She received her B.S. from Georgia Tech, her Ph.D. from Washington University,
and her M.O.M. from her two little boys.
SUSAN TENBY
Susan Niebur, known to many as WhyMommy from Toddler Planet, is a 35 year old cancer survivor and active
Susan Tenby is the TechSoup Community Manager, where she is responsible for the promotion, management and
direction of the TS community forums, with an audience of 100,000 unique visitors a month.
Last year, she launched a community of over 400 nonprofit staff members and volunteers in Second Life. This
community has a shared community blog at http://www.nonprofitcommons.org http://secondlife.techsoup.org and a wiki about
nonprofit activities in SL. They have a shared community tagging project using the tag “NPSL” (Nonprofits in Second Life) on sites
such as del.icio.us, Technorati and Flickr, weekly in-world meetings, every Friday from 8:30-9:30am PST to teach scripting and
best-practices to nonprofits in SL.
She has launched two sims in Second Life called The Nonprofit Commons 1 (on Plush) and The NonprofitCommons 2 (on ALOFT),
with the NPSL community, on land and buildings, all donated by Anshe Chung Studios.
These nonprofits-only sims house 70 organizations, free of charge, to lower the barrier of access to the virtual world.
She was recently honored to be invited to testify before the US Congress on Nonprofits and Second Life, by Congressman Markey.
SUSAN WAGNER
Susan Wagner is the managing editor of ParentDish and AisleDash; she writes about fashion and shopping at
BlogHer and at Fashion Find, and about everything else at Friday Playdate. She is perpetually astonished by the
fact that she makes a living talking about shoes.
TERI TITH
Teri Tith is the Creator of Purple Women & Friends, a team blog by, for and about childfree women. The online
project was started in 2005 during an expat assignment in Canada, and was closed upon Teri's return to her
native California in 2008.
Teri works as a Buyer/Planner in a Bay Area manufacturing company and in her personal time she is an opera
maven, hobby farmer, and a glass artist. She continues to blog for family, friends and fun at Peggy's Place, a blog about her married, rural life in Livermore, Calif.
TRACEE SIOUX
Tracee Sioux is a journalist and photo-journalist with 10 years of experience. She's a Girl-Advocate writing about
body image, parenting daughters, deconstructing media and Girl Culture on Empowering Girls:So Sioux Me. Her
primary goal is nothing short of a Girl Revolution. She can also be found being radical, political, irreverent and
quite funny about women's issues for b5media on Blog Fabulous.
42
BlogHer ‘08
S PEA K ER S
TRACEY GAUGHRAN-PEREZ
Tracey Gaughran-Perez is an ex-academic turned stay-at-home mom and writer living in Baltimore, MD. She is a
prototypical Gen-Xer, professional smartass, and all-around ne'er do well. She's written her personal blog Sweetney since 2004, and during that time has been featured on NPR and CBC Radio (Canada), in print media such
as The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun, and on web sites like BoingBoing. She's also been a speaker at
BlogHer and SXSW interactive conferences.
She also co-founded the very awesometastic pop culture blog MamaPop in 2006, and a design/style blog called We Covet just
this year. In her spare time she runs a children's music series called Rock-n-Romp at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore.
Tracey adores Jon Stewart, all things pirate-y, Elliott Smith, science geekery, and underdogs in all their various incarnations. Surprising though it may be, she does not have any tattoos.
VICKI FORMAN
Vicki Forman teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California. Her work has been nominated for
a Pushcart and has appeared in the Seneca Review and the Santa Monica Review, as well as the anthologies,
Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child With Special Needs, The Spirit of Pregnancy and Literary
Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. Vicki writes a monthly column on special needs parenting at Literary
Mama. She lives in Southern California with her husband and two children (one of whom is multiply-disabled) and has been blogging at Speak Softly “longer than ESPN.”
43
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
P L AT I N U M S P O N S O R
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest automaker, has been the annual global
industry sales leader for 77 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 266,000 people
around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 35
countries. In 2007, nearly 9.37 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following
brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab,
Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling. GM’s OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety,
security and information services. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.
GOLD SPONSORS
iRobot delivers innovative robots that are making a difference in people’s lives. From cleaning
floors to disarming explosives, we constantly strive to find better ways to tackle dull, dirty and
dangerous missions—with better results.
Michelin has a long history of commitment to the environment by offering the most fuel efficient
and longest lasting tires on the road, without compromising the safety and performance consumers
have come to rely on with Michelin. In addition to sponsoring this year’s BlogHer 08 conference,
Michelin will give attendees a look at the all-new Latitude Tour tire designed to increase fuelefficiency, while providing exceptional performance for crossovers and SUVs. They are also proud
to be offsetting over 200 tons of CO 2 produced from travel and accommodations for over 1,000
attendees, as well as venue operations for the three-day event.
The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of
Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™ and Nintendo
DS™ systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 2.7 billion video games and more
than 460 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey
Kong®, Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America
Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western
Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company’s Web site at www.nintendo.com.
With over 200 years experience in the publishing business, John Wiley & Sons has been a
valued source of information and understanding, helping people around the world meet their
needs and fulfill their aspirations. From computers to cooking, travel to technology, and everything in between, Wiley has a book for you. Our core businesses publish scientific, technical,
medical and scholarly journals, encyclopedias, books, and online products and services; professional/trade books, training materials, and online applications and websites; and educational
materials for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners. If you can dream it,
we'll help you do it.
M A K E O V E R P AV I L I O N S P O N S O R S
HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers – from individual consumers
to the largest businesses. HP is the leading provider of personal computers in the world with a wide
portfolio of products including consumer PCs, commercial PCs, workstations, digital entertainment
systems, handheld computing devices, and software and services for commercial and consumer
audiences.
Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks, Quicken and Turbo Tax, is proud to sponsor BlogHer’s Annual
Conference. We are committed to helping bloggers and blogging-related businesses succeed.
Bring your personal and business challenges to the BlogHer ’08 Makeover Pavilion for your “minimakeover” with Intuit’s financial experts. Or visit JumpUp.com—an online community created by
Intuit, where you can get your questions answered by other small business owners.
44
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
Macy's welcomes the bloggers of Blogher to San Francisco! We invite you to sign up for our
exceptional shopping and beauty makeover services and are looking forward to seeing you all in
our store on Saturday the 19th! Be sure to stop by the Macy's table at the conference to receive
a discount shopping pass and don't miss the Pre-Season Sale! Macy's is located at 170 O'Farrell
with entrances on Geary (across from Union Square Park), Stockton and O'Farrell Streets.
The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of
Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™ and Nintendo DS™
systems. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 2.7 billion video games and more than 460
million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey Kong®,
Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based
in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo’s operations in the Western Hemisphere.
For more information about Nintendo, visit the company’s Web site at www.nintendo.com.
Symantec, maker of Norton, is offering PC Tune-up Service, a $69.99 value, FREE at BlogHer.
Technicians will do a full scan to evaluate issues affecting your laptop’s performance and fine-tune
areas to improve speed, stability and security. Internet Safety Advocate Marian Merritt will be available
to discuss family Internet safety, including how parents can protect children from cyber-bullying and
cyber-predation. Symantec will be giving away other free goodies, including copies of Norton 360, a
$79.99 value.
PREMIUM SPONSORS
3-A-Day™ of Dairy is a nutrition education and marketing program launched by the American
Dairy Association® and National Dairy Council® in January 2003 to increase awareness of
the health benefits of including 3 servings of milk, cheese or yogurt a day in their diets. Current
programs, which target women and families, are based firmly in nutrition science. Please visit
www.3aday.org to access the extensive 3-A-Day™ of Dairy recipe library.
Almost 80% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen in the home, and many are witnessed by a family member. Effective bystander CPR, provided immediately after a sudden cardiac arrest can double
or even triple a victim's chance of survival. The American Heart Association provides life-saving
CPR training to students, families, healthcare providers and others to increase survival from sudden
cardiac arrest in every community, and works to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases
and stroke.
From its beginnings in olive oil, Bertolli today has grown to include a broad range of restaurantquality pasta sauce and skillet meals including Bertolli's new Premium Sauce in a pouch which is
microwavable and ready in 90 seconds. For more information and recipes ideas, please visit www.
villabertolli.com.
BOCA is proud to be a sponsor of BlogHer ’08. BOCA Meatless products are made with the
nutritious goodness of soy, which delivers vital nutrients and protein your body needs. BlogHer
attendees are invited to visit BOCA’s Balanced Living site on Gather.com for weekly articles from
our blogger Linda Lee, and the opportunity to participate in a community all about the benefits of
balanced and nutritious living for men and women.
sm
Lea rn . Ac t. Reward. To ge the r.
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Greenopolis.com (Beta) is the first interactive "green" site to bring together individuals, communities, environmental organizations, schools, universities, foundations and corporations provide
a collaborative environment where they can make incremental positive environmental changes individually or together. The Greenopolis.com user experience offers both online and offline environmental learning activities and rewards programs to promote individual and group actions toward a
greener planet. We invite individuals and organizations to partner with Greenopolis to Learn, Act,
Reward, Together™.
K-Y® Brand has been the leader in healthy intimacy for 89 years. A part of the Johnson & Johnson family, K-Y® Brand personal lubricants are the #1 doctor recommended brand, and the most
trusted brand by couples. K-Y® Brand truly understands the needs of couples and what they desire
to enhance their relationship. For nearly a decade, our product innovations have focused on how to enhance
the time couples spend together and encourage dialogue that fosters a satisfying, healthy relationship.
45
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
Microsoft is proud to be a sponsor of BlogHer 2008. Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. At Microsoft, we're motivated and inspired every day by how
our customers use our software to find creative solutions to business problems, develop breakthrough ideas, and stay connected to what's most important to them. To learn more visit us online at
www.microsoft.com.
Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit educational organization that redefined television with the
legendary Sesame Street. Come visit the Sesame Street suite which will feature Grover and Abby
Cadabby who will tape personalized DVD messages for the children in your lives or the big kid in
you. You’ll also get a sneak peak of Sesame Street’s newly designed website and its 39th season
both launching on August 11th, and that’s not all…come see us!
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality arabica coffee in the world. Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for every
customer through every cup. Vivanno Nourishing Blends are the first of many healthier offerings in
the future of food and beverage innovations at Starbucks.
Only TNT has the summer’s hottest dramas. Golden Globe® Winner Kyra Sedgwick returns with
her own unique style of crime solving in THE CLOSER’s best season yet. The number one series in
cable history is all new this July, followed by the season premiere of SAVING GRACE. Academy
Award® Winner Holly Hunter is back in cable’s most talked about drama. Don’t miss TNT Mondays! Two great dramas, one amazing night. It all starts Monday, July 14 at 9/8c on TNT.
Connection is good. In a world full of busy and fragmented lives, we at T-Mobile USA, Inc., have
this idea that wireless communications can help. The value of our plans, the breadth of our coverage, the reliability of our network, and the quality of our service are meant to do one thing: help you
stick together with the people who make your life come alive. That’s why we’re here.
VelaShape™ is the sponsor of the Suite Retreat at BlogHer '08. Take a break from the crowd in a
serene environment, where you can relax, decompress, get a mini massage and, if interested, learn
more about our clinically-proven, FDA-approved and non-surgical solution for body contouring and
the temporary reduction of the appearance of cellulite. VelaShape treatments require no downtime,
but the VelaShape Suite Retreat is here for you if a little downtime is what you’re looking for.
PREMIUM EXHIBITORS
CafeMom is the largest social-networking and community site for moms with 140MM pageviews/
month and more than 3MM visitors/month in April 2008. CafeMom is focused on protecting moms’
privacy to create a safe community where moms can get advice, feel supported, make friends or just
relax. With more than 45,000 groups on CafeMom, moms can connect on shared interests ranging
from pregnancy to photography, from autism to advice, from relationships to recipes. J
CafePress serves up millions of unique products featuring designs that are created by real people,
like you. At BlogHer ’08, find out how you can set up a CafePress shop and join the millions of
entrepreneurs who buy and sell on CafePress. Delight people with your ideas on T-Shirts, hoodies,
caps, bibs, buttons, stickers and more! From political news to juicy gossip, if it happened today
you’ll see it on CafePress – the leader in user-generated commerce.
OTCsafety.org is the online home of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association’s Educational
Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to providing consumers with information about the
safe use of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines. Established and supported by the leading makers of
OTC medicines, OTCsafety.org provides user-friendly resources and tips for consumers looking to
build a better understanding of how to use, administer, and store OTC medicines both safely and effectively.
Picnik.com, the world’s leading online photo editor, gives real people photo-editing superpowers.
Because Picnik lives online, users get fast, easy access to a powerful set of editing tools for editing,
sharing, and printing images using any Internet browser, on any computer platform. Picnik is fun,
intuitive, free, and is fully integrated with a number of sites including Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket,
MySpace and Webshots. With Picnik, you can edit your photos wherever they are from wherever you are.
46
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
Primo water is the only single-serve bottled water whose bottles are made from plants, not crude
oil. Primo gives busy consumers a sustainable bottled water option without having to give up portability, convenience, affordability and great refreshing taste. In blind taste tests conducted across the
U.S. in late 2007, three out of four consumers preferred Primo over the leading spring water and
four out of five preferred Primo over tap water. For more information, visit www.primowater.com.
Snapfish by HP is the number one online photo service, with more than 50 million members in 20
countries. With Snapfish, customers can share and store their photo for free and create prints and
personalized photo gifts online for the best value. We offer professionally-developed prints for just
9¢ each! Snapfish offers more than 100 unique, customizable photo gifts, from a full line of displayquality photo books, calendars, and posters, to photo mugs, mousepads, key chains, and jewelry.
VTech, the creator of the Electronic Learning Products (ELP) Category and the award-winning
V.Smile TV Learning System, is a world leader of age-appropriate learning toys. Since 1976, VTech
has been developing high-quality, innovative educational products that enrich children’s development, from birth to preteen, through fun and smart play. For more information visit www.vtechkids.com.
Yedda, a subsidiary of AOL, is a leading free Questions and Answer service. Yedda connects
knowledge seekers with knowledge sources over the web, by bringing together relevant individuals
with mutual interests on any topic in a dynamic, open, collaborative environment. Yedda's Widgets
can give you exposure to a network of Millions of users on AOL and Yedda by turning your blog
into a knowledge source. To add the free Widgets see yedda.com/blogher08.
EXHIBITORS
Adoptic offers a free blog promotion platform that helps bloggers increase their readership and
expand their network. By logging in to Adoptic.com, bloggers can quickly create a "Snippet" of the
blog posts they want to feature, and display them on other bloggers' sites in their Adoptic communities.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association promotes the safe and appropriate use of
over-the-counter (OTC) medications. In addition to education on the safe use of OTCs, CHPA and
the makers of OTC cough medicines also have taken a leading role in raising awareness about teen
medicine abuse through its FiveMoms.com campaign.
HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers – from individual consumers to the largest businesses. HP is the leading provider of personal computers in the world
with a wide portfolio of products including consumer PCs, commercial PCs, workstations, digital
entertainment systems, handheld computing devices, and software and services for commercial and
consumer audiences.
For 20 years, Safe Kids Worldwide, a global nonprofit organization, has been dedicated to
preventing accidental injuries—the leading cause of death for children ages 0-14. With support
from founding sponsor Johnson & Johnson, Safe Kids Worldwide has contributed to a 45 percent
reduction in the accidental injury-related death rate for children in the U.S.
Joby, a leading developer of innovative consumer electronics accessories, will be showcasing the
Zivio Boom™, a stylish, high performance Bluetooth™ headset you’ll actually enjoy wearing. The
Zivio features an extendable microphone designed for adaptability and superior sound quality. Its
just the thing for those pick-up-the-kids-client-meeting-dry-cleaner-car-wash days.
LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc., a leading developer of technology-based learning products, offers
standalone products for children from birth to 16 years, as well as educational platforms with more
than 100 software titles, covering reading, math, science and more. LeapFrog’s award-winning
products are available at major retailers worldwide.
America loves French fries, but not all are alike. Check out McCain Foods, the largest producer of
frozen fries, at BlogHer '08. Learn about healthier favorites available for families at home and children at school. Sample healthier fries and learn how to talk with your child's school about healthier lunches.
22
merci Finest Assortment of European Chocolates is manufactured by STORCK, a German-based
company founded more than 100 years ago. merci is available in over 70 countries and sold in
leading US retail outlets, including Target, Walgreens, and Wal-Mart Supercenters. Other STORCK
brands include: Werther's Original®, RIESEN®, Mamba®, and Milkfuls®. For more information,
visit storck.us.
47
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
PBS Parents supports parents as they prepare their children for success in school and in life addressing the important aspects of kids early years, from their social and emotional development to
the educational skills they need to learn. PBS PARENTS provides resources and details about PBS
KIDS programs including curriculum goals, co-viewing tips, and activities to entertain and educate
when the TV is turned off.
Smilebox is a photo-sharing service that lets you quickly turn life’s moments into digital creations
you can share with others or save for yourself. Choose from hundreds of scrapbooks, slide shows
or greetings, then drop in your photos and videos and add your own music and text. You can email
it, post or blog it or print any page. Smilebox works on both Mac and PC.
Sprout® is the first 24-hour preschool destination available on TV, on demand and online (www.
SproutOnline.com). Sprout features shows kids love and parents trust like Sesame Street®, Dragon
Tales™, and Barney & Friends™, plus originals that you can only find on Sprout - including The Sunny Side
Up Show and The Good Night Show®
A Top 20 online news destination (comScore, March 2008), Topix is the leading news community
on the Web, connecting people to information and discussions that matter to them in every U.S.
town and city.
Topix links news from 50,000 sources to 360,000 lively user-generated forums and user-edited
news pages. Topix also helps companies to grow and engage their online audiences through syndicated forums, hyper-local platforms, RSS feeds, and more.
UpSpring Baby is a premiere parenting and child consumer healthcare company that delivers
peace of mind products with convenient solutions to everyday life. Founded by mom entrepreneurs,
the company is dedicated to offering parents and children the most innovative and trustworthy health,
wellness and safety products available in the baby care industry.
CHILDCARE
Care.com connecting families with a network of local babysitters, nannies, senior care providers,
tutors, housekeepers and pet sitters nationwide. Membership includes FREE background checks,
robust caregiver profiles, recorded reference interviews and more. Read Sheila’s Blog, by Care.
com founder and CEO, Sheila Marcelo, for news and advice on care planning and balancing work
with a busy life.
LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc., a leading developer of technology-based learning products, offers standalone products for children from birth to 16 years, as well as educational platforms with more than
100 software titles, covering reading, math, science and more. LeapFrog’s award-winning products
are available at major retailers worldwide.
PBS Parents supports parents as they prepare their children for success in school and in life
addressing the important aspects of kids early years, from their social and emotional development
to the educational skills they need to learn. PBS PARENTS provides resources and details about PBS
KIDS programs including curriculum goals, co-viewing tips, and activities to entertain and educate
when the TV is turned off.
SPONSORS
Boingo Wireless, Inc. is the global market leader in Wi-Fi. Boingo makes it easy for people to
enjoy Wi-Fi access on their laptop or smartphones at more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide - including airports, hotels, cafés and metropolitan hot zones - with a single account. More information
about Boingo is available at http://www.boingo.com.
One of the nation’s largest political action committees, EMILY’s List works to elect pro-choice
Democratic women to all levels of government. Since it’s founding in 1985, EMILY’s List has raised
$240 million to elect 84 women to the U.S. Congress, eight governors, and hundreds to state offices. Visit www.emilyslist.org.
48
BlogHer ‘08
S PONS OR S
The goal of Tomima Edmark, CEO of HerRoom.com, the oldest and largest woman-owned online
lingerie retailer, is to make lingerie shopping easy for women of all sizes. She provides detailed
information about fitting and styles, along with innovative tools like Try it Under, the Bounce Test,
real customer comments, multiple images and videos. HerRoom is about us—the lingerie we buy
for ourselves.
hakia.com is a new semantic search engine, focused on providing quality to Web search. As
one of the few technology companies with a woman at the helm (President & COO, Ms. Melek
Pulatkonak), we are proud to present this opportunity to send YOU to Blogher '08.
Kaboodle is the #1 social shopping website where people discover, recommend and share products. Kaboodle's shopping tools allow people to organize shopping lists, discover new things, get
discounts on products and find best prices. With over 8 million monthly unique visitors, at the heart
of Kaboodle is a fun and engaging community of people who love to shop.
ooVoo provides a high-quality video communication service delivering a more meaningful way for people
to talk face-to-face over the Internet. ooVoo’s award-winning technology enables up to six people to have a
video conversation - as if they are in the same room together – send video email, text chat and more.
Screengrab is Weber Shandwick's Interactive, Social and Emerging Media practice. Team members
work with clients to put their messages at the epicenter of today’s digital lifestyle. They develop attentiongrabbing content that engages, informs, entertains and rallies people; is authentic and passion-igniting; and
encourages discussion and word-of-mouth influence.
PA R T N E R S
Barefoot & Pregnant meets the needs of mothers-to-be with prenatal spa services and babymoon packages. Part of Casa Madrona’s full-service spa, Barefoot & Pregnant offers nearly 20
specialty prenatal services. In Fall 2008, www.BarefootandPregnant.com is launching a comprehensive online community for expecting parents, focused on mind, body and soul. Kick off your
shoes and come relax with us in the Suite Retreat at BlogHer ’08!
All (oops) wines are made from the Carmenère grape, one of six noble grapes of Bordeaux, once
thought lost forever, but was recently discovered masquerading as Merlot in the vineyards of Chile.
Visit oopswines.com to learn more about the grape at the center of one of the wine world's greatest
mistaken identities.
SECOND LIFE SPONSOR
The AskPatty.com, Inc. website, blog and Second Life venue is a safe place for women to get
advice on car purchases, maintenance and other automotive related topics. Women can research
and compare, locate and shop for new and used cars and trucks at an AskPatty.com female friendly
trained and certified dealership.
49
" I ' m totally blogging this!"
ht tp : //www. m o m to t h e s c re a m i n g m a s s e s .t y p e p a d .c o m

BlogHer 08 brochure

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