What a great weekend this was! I spent two days with 300 women who blog. They blog about everything under the sun, from politics to pies and education to end-runs. Instead of being one of a handful of women in the room, I was surrounded by hundreds of smart women with big voices - and they are speaking out. And it was a completely different kind of tech conference - the attendees told the organizers in the pre-survey that they did not want a 'school' experience with experts and powerpoints talking at them. This was a very interactive conference where every speaker or panel engaged with the audience. Many of the AHA! moments came from ideas shared from the floor. Anina, a fashion model from Paris who has an interesting fashion and lifestyle blog project said she had no idea so many hot chicks knew how to code. Meeting people I respect and read was one of the highlights for me I have been a Contentious reader since 1999 and Amy Gahran came to my session on RSS feeds. After the session we spoke about her post on online PR versus traditonal PR Charlene Li of Forrester Research led the Business blogging session and I was pleased to hear her views on comments on a corporate blog being a difficult issue. Toby Bloomberg queried that if you don't have open comments, is it a blog? Charlene said yes it absolutely is - you just offer different way for people to cotact you. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and lerned a lot. I came away inspired to write more about what I personally care about - the research and trends in PR, the media and how technology is changing the way we communicate, shop, think, interact and behave. | 
