Anne Truitt Zelenka

Anne,

I really like the idea. Please let me know how we can help you with this project. We could provide a room at the St. Regis to record your podcasts with the people who can make it to San Francisco for the conference, and you could have an Internet connection allowing you to involve people who cannot. We could also ask CNET if they would be willing to give you access to their professional recording studio. We can help you promote your podcasting effort through the conference’s website, the IT|Redux blog, and some of the blogs of the Enterprise Irregulars. Feel free to email me at ismael@itredux.com if you would like to discuss this in more details.

Best regards
-Ismael

Anne,

Sounds good. Keep me posted.

Jeneane - I apologize for oversimplifying and neglecting the long history. I was trying to give some context, but I know it falls far short of capturing everything that has happened.

Personally I feel like puking even at the thought of a podcast. But I’ll do it anyway.

I’d love to have your help. I’ll be in touch.

Sadly I took all my time off in August and have a bijillion hours to bill in September too. At least school’s in session, phew.

There’s something about this idea that seems too second tier. I think a more radical reorganization of the event is called for or perhaps - waiving the registration fees of all self identified women attendees. That would be a meaningful move on the part of the event organizers. If they’ve really only been organizing this event for a short time, it would be very cool if they came out early and said “we made a mistake - we admit it and we support efforts for this to change - reg waived for women and we chalk this up as a mistake.” I imagine that would be quite difficult and complicated, but it sure would be cool.

Marshall - I had that feeling too yesterday on reflecting on it, that it seemed like a podcast ghetto of sorts. But I don’t think it has to be second tier. It could be an alternate tier. It doesn’t have to be only inexperienced or relatively unknown speakers. Not sure I have the mojo to attract big names to the cause, but you can imagine that someone with little time who was not planning to attend Office 2.0 might have time to contribute a short, to-the-point podcast.

We think right now that in-person presentations are better than podcasts with active discussion among a broader crowd than just the attendees, but that’s not necessarily the case.

If it would be a lesser tier or even just a parallel kind of tier, I wouldn’t be in favor of it. I told Ismael I was thinking of it as an orthogonal tier. Maybe it’s naive or utopian to think that’s possible. But I hope it will be an interesting experiment at the very least.

Anne, I think this is a WONDERFUL idea! I’ll have more to say on it soon when I have a better internet connection, but good for you for being creative and assertive about DOING something (and I think this is a really good something).

Hm. Many thoughts. Which is why it’s taken me a while to comment.

I think there is another method going on besides the three you mention at the beginning of this post. There is something between the individual uni-dimensional effort (whether as social critic or as active individual participant) and the BlogHer-create-your-own effort…and it’s something BlogHer also does a lot of, although it’s not as obvious, and it’s something that Tara and the Head Lemur also took a crack at…and that’s the networking effect. Trying to introduce others besides oneself into the mix. BlogHer produced a track at SXSW, and brought a “posse” to Bloggercon and we’re working on producing content at a couple of other events too. Not to mention happily responding to organizers who ask for referrals. (And yes, Ismael and I have now been in touch.) Personally I am not enough of a geek in many popular subject matters to promote *myself* for speaking at their events, but I sure as hell know women who are. If you read how Office 2.0 came together this is exactly how most of the speakers were picked…not through submissions or applications, but through introductions. Check out Ismael’s ‘Credits‘ page for proof. So there is a more multi-dimensional tactic at which we can *all* make more effort, for ourselves and our smart colleagues.

I like the podcast idea, but not sure I like it as an event-specific adjunct, for two reasons:

1. I am not positive it *does* benefit the event. I had an interesting discussion with a BlogHer speaker who also happens to have recently been part of an event organization team recently herself. She said she was beginning to wonder about the value of how far we organizers are all going to provide official real-time or even post-event “fly on the wall” experiences to non-attendees of conferences. She feels the experience is degraded for those people who actually spent the time and money to attend because conversation are necessarily more stilted and guarded because of the recording process…for both technical and self-consciousness reasons. And that people want to attend and feel they’re getting something unique for their efforts and participation, otherwise why attend? Her thoughts really kind of blew my mind, since we’ve all been heading in the opposite direction of course. Interesting philosophical discussion to have, and I think conference organizers will have to consider it. I think face to face events have a quality that cannot be replicated virtually, and that’s why people group together and meet. (That’s not to say I think we need the gajillion events that currently exist…but there is definitely a reason to have in-person meetings.)

2. I’m pretty sure it *doesn’t* benefit the virtual participants. I think making your idea event-specific is just too limiting. Both in time and scope and target audience. On the other hand, creating an ongoing podcast that is comprised of tutorials or presentations around timely topics? That’s pretty kick ass. Because it creates a centralized resource, because it creates an archive. Because it starts on a foundation and builds and isn’t attached to any ephemeral occurrence, like a tech industry event
OK…any more comments, and I’d have to turn this into a post, so I’ll stop now.

Elisa, wow, thanks for your detailed comments. You provide such a valuable perspective.

Admittedly, I simplified the tactics under use today and left out some very important ones. I agree with you that a multi-pronged approach is necessary. Yes, let’s get more networking happening. But speaker lists and introductions only go so far.

I think potential speakers need lots of opportunities for exposing their work and ideas to conference organizers. Lists of speakers are good. Friends of friends/associates of associates are good. Both would be improved with heightened visibility of the potential speakers along with lots of opportunity to practice and promote their speaking skills along the way. Imagine that you mention Person X as a speaker for someone’s conference. Maybe they’ve come across her work in a different context… perhaps at a podcast jam? It adds to the likelihood they’ll contact her. It also means they may have heard her express her ideas verbally instead of just in writing. Okay, podcasts aren’t in-person speaking engagements. Still, it’s something beyond a blog post.

You make good points about the disadvantages of tying this to a specific event. I think there are huge disadvantages to doing so, but also huge advantages. Here are my initial thoughts on your two points:

1. The idea that extending the conference’s reach to virtual participants takes away from the event itself. That may be so. There are many cases where the virtual version of something decreases the value of the in-person version. That may be because eventually the virtual version will drive out the in-person version, or at least many instances of it. There’s no doubt that we have a little bubble in 2.0 conferences (I don’t include BlogHer in that group). If people find their needs for networking, promoting themselves and their products, learning new things, etc. are better served with more virtual options and fewer in-person ones, that seems like a natural evolution.

However, I bet that extending the reach of some conferences virtually also has benefits. People might decide to come in person the next year after experiencing it online. It spreads the reach of the sponsors. It gives more attention to speakers. And so forth.

2. On the limitations of having it coincident in time and topic with an in-person tech conference. Limiting this initial experiment in scope and time has benefits–it’s easier to put together, we can get fast feedback, it makes it of interest to the actual conference attendees and sponsors and speakers so there is a specific population it’s targeted to.

It’s like the difference between baking a cake and opening a restaurant to me. I don’t want to open a restaurant but I can do the work to bake a cake, see how it tastes. It tastes good? Hmm, what more can I do with this idea, this recipe. It tastes really really bad, it fell, it looks horrible? Throw it out and move on.

I also find this Office 2.0 topic personally and professionally fascinating. I like the thought of being a part of it, but virtually. I want the conversation to be relevant, timely, controversial, fun. I think I can get more of that by doing it at the same time as the conference.

Anyway, thanks again for the thought-provoking comments. I don’t mind comments that look like posts; that usually means they’re really meaty.

Hi Anne. I am one of the rare female specimans speaking at Office 2.0. Your credentials far outweigh mine for a speaking opportunity. I got in because, yes, I knew someone and I asked…! I also pulled the gender card (true confessions) early on when I realized only one woman was on the agenda.

I could not agree with you and everyone commenting here more. In this hard-core niche tech sector, I rarely see a woman represented or hear a woman’s voice. We are living in the Age of Hilary and/or Ann Coulter (pick your poison). We are not shrinking violets. Speak up. Be heard. I took a snipe (and who-am-i to do such-a-thing?) recently at a well-respected blogger for a sexist post that I thought would ex-communicate me from the male-dominated church that is leading this crusade. He took it in stride.

As far as Office 2.0, a recurring theme in these comments is “fun.” There is an energy about Office 2.0 that attracted me to it. There is something really interesting going on relative to Enterprise 2.0 as an emerging idea. Let’s not let the gender bias issue distract us. They’re men; they make mistakes. Let’s go to Office 2.0 and learn something. It will be fun. And if we have something valuable to contribute, let’s publish it or podcast it or vlog it or…? That’s what this conference is all about. Brilliant ideas can’t be stifled or silenced by old-school discrimination and old-boy networks. Web 2.0 is an equal opportunity publisher.

In the meantime, I vote for a BlogHer dedicated exclusively to women in tech. Anyone in?

Anne: Networking will never disappear as an important way that things happen. I never got a job that wasn’t ultimately traced back to knowing someone somewhere…and this dates back to way before the days of LinkedIn and blogging as a living CV and social media and networking tools as enablers. These tools now expand the size and scope our networks can grow to, and we should use every such tool at our disposal. So I totally agree that the podcasts could be a terrific marketing tool for anyone hoping to get on the speaker circuit. When I put my traditional CV online finally it was wonderful to be able to link directly to articles I’d written, and even link to a video tutorial featuring me that my old company used to have on their web site. Yes, seeing or hearing someone speak could be a deal-sealer over merely the written word. And it’s a way for people who don’t have a ton of public speaking experience to create their own! Anne, I also agree that there are some great uses for the virtual arms of conferences…all the ones you mention. And see your point about the cake vs. the restaurant. I’m a big believer, as Kathy states above, in doing stuff. So, if you can get *excited* about a project whether it’s cake-size or restaurant-size, that’s the one you should do, because that’s the one you’ll end up doing well.

Amy: LOL. Probably. I have to say that in our post-conference survey the majority of folks who attended think it’s cool to go through that little extra effort to communicate to the “outside world.” But it did give me food for thought.

Susan: A BlogHer Tech is totally within the realm of possibility. We introduced our first sub-conference for early next year, BlogHer Business, due to exactly that kind of push/pull from the community. You should check out this post at BlogHer describing some of what happened during the Get Deeply Geeky session. I know names/emails were collected and future actions discussed. If nothing else I know I’ll be on the look-out for a tech programming “chair” for BlogHer ‘07. I am not geeky enough.