Author: Average Jane

I'll start by saying that this may have been my favorite BlogHer Conference to date. The keynotes and sessions were amazing, I saw tons of friends and made some new ones, and the venue left absolutely nothing to be desired.

I'll be posting little tidbits until I run out of topics, but I wanted to start with what I considered the personal highlights for me. (Because it's all about ME, ME, ME!)

1. Speaking on the Little Fish in a Big Pond – Understanding, Accepting and Loving Your Small Blog panel with Nora and Catherine.

Photo by lizriz

When you're speaking on a panel, it can be difficult to judge whether or not the audience is digging what you have to say. I had an idea that it was going well because people laughed at all the right junctures and also because the room kept getting more and more full throughout the discussion, rather than emptying out as sessions sometimes do.

As it turned out, this topic hit a nerve with many bloggers who enjoy blogging for its own sake and don't have ambitions to build media empires. After the session and throughout the evening, people kept coming up to me and telling me how much they appreciated the discussion, so it felt like a major triumph.

2. The Voices of the Year Keynote, Gala and Art Exhibit

In a nutshell, this program honored more than a hundred bloggers for their writing and design. Twelve bloggers presented their winning posts at the keynote and it was, as usual, one of my favorite parts of the conference. Ninety additional bloggers, including me, had posts selected as finalists. All of the honorees' posts were then divided up by visual artists who created artwork inspired by each post.

At first I didn't see "my" artwork because I didn't realize how many rooms there were in the exhibit. I walked around and enjoyed all of the other art and the ability to add little "thought balloon" stickers to the display to comment. Then my roommates found me and excitedly told me where I could find the photograph inspired by my post. 

If you click through the link to the original post, I've added a close-up of the artwork, which is called "I'm A Regular Here," and was created by Megan Reardon.

Of course, I also had to take photos of my friends with "their" art:

Kelli with the artwork inspired by her post, "Pissing off people Left and Right."

Liz with the artwork based on "Phone Karma," which she read as a keynote presenter.

Kelly, photographing one of two pieces of artwork inspired by her powerful post, "I'm Black Irish and I'm Proud."

I have lots of other stuff to share, but those two events were definite high points for me and remind me why I keep coming to the conference year after year. Thanks so much to Elisa, Jory and Lisa for making each year better and better!

People who are around me all the time know that I'm pretty unflappable. I take most things in stride and rarely display a lot of strong emotion.

Well, not this week. For whatever reason, this week's conference is making me lose my mind. I haven't been this excited since I still believed in Santa Claus. Every morning for the last several days I've been waking up with BlogHer-related stuff swirling in my head and it's taken every relaxation technique I know for me to get back to sleep.

I have a packed schedule for the trip. Tomorrow I leave early and get into La Guardia a little before 11 a.m. Queen of Quirky is on my flight, and we're planning to meet up with Cagey and cab share to the hotel. 

At some point in the afternoon, Cagey and I will touch base with our other roommates, Kelli and Dawn. Yep, we're going to have a fun room!

I have speaker training at 5, then two parties in a row. (I've decided that all party RSVPs are to be played by ear. If I'm too tired or have the opportunity to spend quality time with one of my many blog friends instead, the party loses.)

On Friday morning, I'm going to start the day with a brisk 5k walk in Central Park. Based on my usual 5k walk duration, I assume that I'll have plenty of time to shower and make it to the start of the conference day by 9 a.m.

I am beyond excited about the Voices of the Year event, and I can't wait to see if there's a piece of artwork based on the post I wrote. I'll be wearing my new dress to the gala and then to a Nintendo-sponsored dinner that I'm attending as Liz Rizzo's guest. 

I speak on Saturday afternoon, but I'll attend sessions all day before that. In the evening, I'm planning on going to Sparklecorn and CheeseburgHer. Lesson learned from last year: have dinner first.

On Sunday, my flight isn't until the evening, so I have time to do some touristy stuff. That morning, I'm going to the Central Park Zoo with Susan Getgood. I have no concrete plans after that, so if you're around NYC all day Sunday and you want to do something, let me know!

You can see why it's difficult for me to concentrate on anything besides the trip right now.

This is probably the last you'll hear from me until next week. I've decided not to bring my laptop and it seems like more trouble than it's worth to try to blog from an iPhone. But, you never know.

When I get back and finish boring you to death with post-BlogHer stories, I'll be starting a new project involving a couple of the cats. (Foreshadowing!)

Enjoy the rest of your week and weekend.

I am absolutely delighted and honored to be included among the 2010 BlogHer Voice of the Year finalists, fittingly in the Geeky/Nerdy category. It's for my post, How Average Jane's Brain Works.

Randomly enough, all three of my 2010 BlogHer roommates are also finalists. Congratulations, Kelli, Kelli and Dawn! Congratulations to ALL of the finalists and presenters. I'm especially looking forward to hearing Liz read her blog post.

The list of judges is so impressive that I'm mainly just psyched that they all read my blog post. The fact that they chose it as a finalist is gravy.

I predict that this is going to be a great conference year. It's in New York City (woohoo!), I'm signed up for more parties than I can actually attend, I'm doing a 5k in Central Park and I get to speak on a panel.

Before that, though, I'm hosting a pre-BlogHer meetup in Kansas City this Saturday, July 24th. If you're anywhere in the vicinity, please join us! You can get more details and RSVP on Facebook.

The countdown begins…

This week, BlogHer put out a call for photos, BlogHer Conferences in Pictures: The Early Years, 2005-2009, which prompted me to go looking for photos from the inaugural conference held in San Jose in 2005. As it turned out, I didn't really have any.

Then I went back and looked at my blog posts about the event. There was one brief post about the conference itself, one about touring the Winchester Mystery House the day I arrived, and one about going to the San Jose Flea Market and doing some other sightseeing with Cagey the day we left.

As hard as it is to believe now that I'm preparing for my sixth BlogHer Conference, the first one didn't loom all that large at the time. Here's how it all went down:

I'd been blogging for more than a year when I heard about a women's blogging conference being held in San Jose. I thought it sounded like something I'd enjoy, so I enlisted Cagey as a traveling companion and roommate because who wouldn't want to vacation in California?

When we arrived, we got a rental car and set off to find something to eat. Next on our agenda was a tour of the Winchester mansion, which we both considered a special bonus of the conference's San Jose location.

We were both looking forward to meeting bloggers, but we timed things wrong for dinner, so we didn't end up socializing with anyone the first evening. The important thing to keep in mind is that we didn't know anyone at the conference. That statement blows my mind because I know so many bloggers now, but at the time I hadn't met any non-local bloggers in person.

As I mentioned in my one post about the conference, I did get to meet some bloggers whose blogs I'd been reading regularly, including Yvonne DiVita, Toby Bloomberg, Amy Gahran, Elisa Camahort, Jory DesJardins, Susannah Gardner and Eden Kennedy. It's not like me to be shy when it comes to meeting people, but somehow I failed to introduce myself to Alice Bradley. (I rectified that the following year). I also met Lisa Stone, Liz Rizzo, Ronni Bennett and Tish Grier that first year, among many others, I'm sure.

However, I didn't think to take photos during the conference at all even though I practically filled up my camera while we were sightseeing.

I remember lots of little details: the men's restrooms at the convention center changed into women's restrooms, the opening slideshow, the tables in the atrium where we hung out between sessions. Memories will just have to suffice, though.

To be perfectly honest, I really didn't learn my lesson about the photos until 2007. My photos from 2006 are sparse as well and mostly show big, amorphous groups – except for this good one of Toby Bloomberg, Susan Getgood and Yvonne DiVita:

At the time, I had no idea how important BlogHer and the people I met there would become in my life and career. Now I can't imagine a year going by without my attending a BlogHer Conference.

I'm very much looking forward to this year's conference, especially since I'll be speaking on a panel. As always, the highlight will be tracking down my favorite bloggers and talking to them in person. It's less than a month away. I can hardly wait!