Christopher Carfi

The aftershocks of BlogHer rumble through the blogosphere…the confidence, the insights, the diversity, (and even the vitriol and invective), 700++ voices from the individuals who were there, as well as the multitudes who followed the conference online. It would be easy to say that last year’s question…”Where Are The Women Bloggers?”…had been conclusively and definitively answered.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

On a lark, I took a peek over at TechMeme this morning. This is what I found:

That’s right. Five of the seven connected posts (71.4%, if my math is right) were by guys…yet, as Christine notes, 88.9% of the attendees at the conference were women.

I know (or at least I hope) that this kind of bias (def’n 3: “statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others”) isn’t something that Gabe Rivera has intentionally built into TechMeme. Yet, it appears Mena’s point was spot-on.

How to fix this? Unfortunately, I think as a result of power law dynamics, there may always be the opportunity for these kinds of biases to become systemic in the tools. As a result, yes, we need to make better tools. But, more importantly, we need to make an individual effort not to just rely on the “Top 10” or “Top 100” lists, and instead get outside of our comfort zones and intentionally discover new voices and listen. (This echoes what I wrote about after the 2005 BlogHer conference. It’s still true.)

Now, I’m going to game the system, link to Dave’s post (yes, reinforcing the problem in the short term), yet hopefully drawing some notice to the issue so that future iterations of tools address this more effectively.

Back from two phenomenal days at BlogHer, and now starting to digest some of the things that I’d noticed over the weekend. First off, the right and wrong ways to market at a conference. Some thoughts from the Odd Time Signatures blog:

“I do, however, remember the sponsors of Blogher 2006, because they made their products relevant. Until Friday, the only car I was considering to replace one of our ancient jalopies was a Toyota Prius. Post-Blogher, Saturns are very much a part of my horizons, because GM got it exactly right. Give us the keys, let us test drive it, and if we like it we’ll buy it, talk about it, recommend it to our friends, give word of mouth/blog the power it deserves. They really got it right and they deserve many positive BlogHer mentions. I hope they sell a ton of Sky cars, and hope even more one of them is sold to me. GM/Saturn gets my vote as the sponsor who got it the mostest. They rocked.”

I’d have to agree. GM did three things right:

1) They had a noticable physical presence (a half-dozen parking spaces in front of the convention center)
2) They offered an experience (a chance to drive some hot and eco-friendly vehicles)
3) They stayed the hell outta-the-way, and only interacted with those who wanted to interact with them (they didn’t impose…if you wanted to interact, they welcomed you with open arms, but did not interrupt in the slightest into the proceedings of the conference)

Contrast this to the way Microsoft handled their opportunity. Amy Gahran writes:

“Still, I had to cringe at the campy, off-target Microsoft presentation during the welcome session just a few minutes ago.

To promote its new Windows Live Spaces service, someone at Microsoft thought it would be appropriate and fun to send a couple of bouncy, bubbly, sexy, carefully scripted 20-somethings uniformed in tight t-shirts and jeans to banter giddily for about 10 minutes on home improvement. It sounded like Barbie doing ‘Tool Time’ in stereo.”

Teachermama adds:

“The corporate sponsors didn’t really seem to get who their audience was, with the Be Jane weirdness being the primary example. All around me, people were making comments about feeling like ‘Math is hard’ Barbie was up on stage talking WAY down to us. Here’s a hint: if you’re facing a ballroom full of hundreds of smart, tech-savvy women, ‘home improvement is scary’ isn’t the way to our hearts.”

What other things did you see at BlogHer (or other conferences) where the sponsors either did something very, very right or horribly, horribly wrong?

(photo credits: socalmom and the right conversation)

BlogHer ’06 had 700+ attendees on Day 2. Daniel Terdiman writes:

“In what might be the largest-ever event of its kind, hundreds of women bloggers will gather here Friday and Saturday for the second annual BlogHer conference.”

So, now I’m stumped. Forget the “of it’s kind” qualifier — is BlogHer the largest blogging conference, period?

(If’n I remember, BloggerCon III back in 2004 was about 350 attendees or so, and BloggerCon IV a few weeks ago was maybe half that…)

“Stop making lists! Enough with the lists! You know what, the people making the lists…they are the ones who are on top of the lists!” – Mena Trott (responding to Craig Williams‘ question “what can male bloggers be doing differently?”)

“Fearlessness is not absence of fear. Fearlessness is not letting fear stop us.” – Arianna Huffington

“Technology is for folks.” – Grace Davis

(live from BlogHer)

“I’m not a great photographer. My pictures are not worth 1000 words. My pictures are worth, like, 50 words, and I have to write the other 950.” – Eden Kennedy