Why Blogs are Empowering to US!!

Remarks about Why BlogHer and what people are gaining throughout the course of the day.......

**Some women now want to start doing video blogs and podcasting....
**Some had insecurities about moblogging and video blogging, but no longer do......
**One woman says "Before I came here today, I didn't really know whether blogging was making an impact on the world...."
**From another, "I really like the combined power of education and blogging, we should now make a bloggers dummy kit (blogger kit for starters, not just for young girls, but for grandmothers....) and throw it out there......."
**A mother says, "I don't have time to do much more. I have a job, children, a home, a blog.....how do we get people who don't know what blogging is and why to do this. How do make that shift to get more powerful new voices out there......"
**"At the identity blogging session, I learned about vulnerability and naked out there. I learned how many people are naked in the same way but about different topics. I came here looking for parallels and found so many of them. I even saw parallels between corporate blogging and mommy blogs, in terms of the types of decisions you have to make in what you make public and don't........"
**Says Samantha Soma, "Instead of how do we, why don't we? We each commit to get three people we really respect to start blogging by the end of October......"
**A fashion model from Paris talks about her world in fashion, they're asking me questions how do make money from blogs, what tools do I use.......
**It's so great to see how many hot chicks who know how to code.......

Jay Rosen stands up and says, "I came for the hot chicks who know how to code. I have two observations to offer you. The first of which is why events like this are important.......blogging as a practice, as a form, is a form of freedom. A blog is a First Amendment Machine. It really is an extension of free speech and free press, to the people. Instead of people having press who works on their behalf, people are starting to do it themselves.....and I'm seeing that here. It can only be a whole social practice with women involved."

Jay continues......"My second discovery was -- and I didn't expect this part -- terror. Lots of people brought up the terror of the Internet and what to do about it. People attack me, what if I have a stalker, how do I protect my kids, my family, how do I not get fired. This is an important consideration. We live in a world of terror. Instead of accepting it, the people at this conference are bringing the terror on. There are ways to defeat that. There are ways to blog where you can't be attacked anymore. There's something important about going out and meeting this terror. I never realized how important blogging was - in terms of facing fear of strangers, fear of being attacked.......that's my take away..."

We talked about open space technologies, where you show up and create an agenda of what everyone wants to talk about on a token day.

We talked about the lack of women speakers at technology conferences....and what to do about it. There's a need to create a master list of powerful interesting and dynamic woman and what they want to talk about, so we have access to this list when an opportunity comes up to recommend someone when asked or proactively submit someone's name. SmartMobs was raised. What a great idea it would be to get women to smartmob around male dominated conferences.......this would certainly change the conference.

A great emotional soundbite......
"The power to fix what's wrong in the world is here....."