Events and Conferences

Susie and Shane Interviewed on Blog Talk Radio

Shane and I were at SXSW Interactive for the past few days, meeting, greeting, listening and partying. (It’s a great conference for you Web tech geeks, if you’re interested.) While we were there we did an interview about the book with John Havens of BlogTalkRadio. It was really fun!

Better yet, you can listen to us talk about blogs and TV shows from childhood from right here in this blog post. Check it out:

BlogHer Business Talk: Moving From “Should” to “Can”

Are you a woman that blogs? Then you need to know about the BlogHer conferences going on in 2008! BlogHer is an organization that reaches out to women bloggers in all areas, from professional blogging to mommy blogging to sex blogging. The conferences include men, but are focused on the issues and ideas near and dear to the hearts of women.

In 2008, there are two conferences and several “Reach Out” events: BlogHer Business, BlogHer, Real Out Tour in Boston, Washington DC, Greensboro, Nashville, Atlanta, and New Orleans.

I’m really looking forward to moderating a panel at BlogHer Business 2008, which is taking place April 3-4 in New York. Here’re the details:

Moving From “Should” to “Can”
Track: Social Media Creation Best Practices
You’ve heard all the reason you’re supposed to have a company blog and more. But let’s talk about moving from “should” to “can.” From technology choices to time management, community policies to common pitfalls, this session is designed to help you figure out what will give your company the greatest comfort level and potential for success when launching a blog, podcast or online community. Technologist and author Susannah Gardner moderates this discussion. We’ll get insight on how PBS Parents is making the journey from “should” to “can” by talking to the Director of PBS Parents, Jean Crawford, and one of her blogger/consultants, Jen Lemen…someone who is associated with the most authentic and creative aspects of the blogosphere, but is helping organizations tap into their opportunities to be a part of it.

Even if you can’t make it to one of the events this year (there are “blogherships” if there are financial reasons you can’t make it), you should really get familiar with the BlogHer organization, and get your blog into the BlogHer network.

Northern Voice Conference: Widgets Talk

Only one more sleep till Northern Voice! Northern Voice is a community organized conference happening here in Vancouver this week. This is it’s fourth year (wow!), and the second out at the University of British Columbia campus.

NV08 in a nutshell:

• 21 Feb (Thu) - Opening party 6p.m. at the Waldorf
• 22 Feb (Fri) - MooseCamp, an “unconference” including Internet BootCamp for beginners. Lead or participate in spontaneous sessions and go to the sessions that make sense for you
• 23 Feb (Sat) - “Traditional” conference covering all aspects of social media including blogging, videoblogging, etc.

The idea of Northern Voice is to create an informal events for all kinds of bloggers, from tech geeks to personal bloggers. I’ve gone all four years, and it’s such a great event. You don’t get much of that professional posturing you sometimes see at professional and technical conferences and there is always something to learn. Unfortunately, if you haven’t registered, it is sold out, but if you’re going, be sure to come to my talk on blog widgets:

Widgets
On a blog, lots of valuable information is contained in the sidebar and usually blog software comes with some content already in the sidebar, like links to your categories, archives, and RSS feed. But you can include much more than blog content in your sidebar: you can put widgets onto your blog in this space!

Many blogger use widgets to have a little fun by recommending books they like or letting folks know what music they’re listening to. And there are more widgets than you can imagine out there.

In this session I show you some of my favorite widget tools, and walk you through how to put them into some of the common blog software. And before you go crazy, I’ll tell you about what the impact of loading all these widgets will have on your blog’s performance.

A few of the widgets I’ll discuss: photo feeds, blog rolls, books and music, surveys, and instant updates!

Hey, if you have a widget you think I should feature, leave me a comment here!