LaurieWrites

BlogHer 07 Scavenger Hunt

I'm very much doubting that I've won anything in this scavenger hunt, but I did take a ton of photos and got some wonderful people in them, so I figured I'd link to them anyway.

Who knew there were two other Lauries (at least?) in the house?

It was fantastic to meet Laurie from Not Just About Cancer, who writes beautifully about her experience with the disease and about her life in general. She was one of the people I got to talk to at the unconference. 

I got to talk with Laurie Toby Edison from Body Impolitic, and also heard her on the  "Our Bodies, Our Blogs" panel. I realized that I am sorely unfamiliar with most of the online discourse about body image and weight, and this really shouldn't be, since this is an issue that has framed my life experience in SO many ways. (I did, however, get to meet Wendy! Wendy McClure! From Pound, who was the first blogger I ever read, and remains one of my favorite voices in any kind of media. She was on the panel too.)
Anyway, here's Laurie and me. (Hi, my hair! Meet Lake Michigan! SPROING!!!!)

Duh, I got a photo of Wendy too, if we're talking "blog idols". They didn't turn out well, since the light was funky and my focus was off, but meeting her in person was much more fun anyway.

Let's see, what else?

How's this for a money shot?

I can use it for one thing, right? I'll take Susan Wagner from Oklahoma for five points then. But only because I have the BlogHer cofounders here. 

...AND the lovely Cooper and Emily from BlogHers Act here.  

Also geographically speaking, Dana from the Dana Files is from Wisconsin, and is on the far left of this shot of the opening circle at the Unconference on Sunday.

Finally, I met Jen B. from Canada (another country, for me), while she was helping out at the wine table.

And here's BlogHer community manager Denise Tanton (and Elisa and Jory, too) on her red cell phone.

It's fuzzy, but Liza from Culture Kitchen

was with us at dinner the first night (that's her with Maria Niles ) and she had braids in!

Here's the lovely Catherine Morgan (and my girl Deb) drinking water, which is pretty much her drink of choice.

Here's the wonderful Elizabeth Perry of Woolgathering,  crafting. She always says that she's "learning to draw in public", which I can relate to cause that's how I feel about my photography - it's all be pretty much out there from day one - but her work is gorgeous! Really.

Cynthia Samuels from Don't Gel too Soon rocks the pen and paper.

New favorites? Here are two in one shot (although there were many, many  more). This is Skye Kilaen of All-Access Blogging and Heroine Content, and also Vero of Little Elephants. We had a great conversation about being childless, childfree, and then "with child" that spanned all of our experiences.

 

I think Jack Vinson got a lot out of talking with us at the "unconference" on the last day. He was a great addition to our discussion on what you reveal and what you don't when you blog. He left with a brand new idea for a personal blog that I believe he's already started up, called CoffeeNeeded.com. His posts about the Sunday gathering at his original site are great.

Okay, I believe I have more on my other memory card, but that's all for now. I'm going to post to make sure I get in before the deadline today, but will likely add more later.

A COUPLE MORE!!!!! Alert! Alert!

Here's Erin Kotecki Vest managing her queendom in Second Life. That's social media, right?

Here is Heather Clisby, whose site I had never read in spite of the fact that she is the new photo editor for BlogHer, and I am the old.

Heather (that's her on the right in the SXSW shirt) is awesome. And she is the person whom I did not previously know and nor did I read, but now I will. Oh yes, I will. (And she's also the only person I've ever met who has almost immediately christened me her fairy godmother, and the scary thing is that I believe she means it.)

I already knew Maria Niles before this conference, so she is familiar awesome. It's a bonus that they're both in this photo.

I don't have a blog look-a-like. On the outside. On the inside, I look and feel JUST like Christine Kane, when I'm rocking out. For serious. And also I'm about fifty pounds lighter, and just glow like she does. Seriously - she's so lovely, and so nice.

   

And this little dude qualifies in my book as the youngest blogger - CLEARLY liveblogging his experience on the way back to the W. (If anyone can identify mommy or baby in this picture, please let me know.)

Artificial Intelligence doesn't do it justice.

Day two of Blogher just began, and we're already in a fascinating panel that is much more accessible and fascinating to me than the title - "Artificial Intelligence" - suggested. (Also, there was bacon for breakfast. Yay for bacon.)

Esther Dyson is a rockstar. I was so happy that she brought up the concept of access to information and literacy itself as a problem, in response to the question "are blogs elitist?" If a person can't read, then she can't read a blog, anymore than she has equal access to a job application or a driver's license (although someone may have given her a "gift" of a high school diploma to keep their graduation numbers stable, whether she could read the text on it or not. I had a student this year who couldn't spell his middle name.)

I sat here looking around the room at all the women with expensive laptops, who spend a great deal of time, for the most part, writing online and reading what other people have to say. We all do it for our own and usually vastly different reasons, but I'm aware that even though I'm not rich by any means or even close, I have access to most of what I need each day through the information I can find almost immediately.

Clearly even owning a computer puts you in a different strata. It gives you mobile access to essentially everything that you could possibly need to navigate this crazy, complicated world. That doesn't necessarily make you elitist, it just makes you lucky. And it's good, if you are, to be aware that you are, but everyone isn't, so you can't assume that it's a level playing field. To say that doesn't matter would teeter over into elitist. Hell, even having the luxury of discussing whether the "blogosphere is elitist" could make you elitist.

It was Annalee Newitz (also, so smart and a great speaker) who pointed out that it's not the blogs themselves that are elitist -but that PEOPLE who blog can be. Exactly.

"The Art of Reviews" liveblog

Maria Niles is moderating the "Art of Reviews" panel. She wants to let you know that if what you're interested in learning about is disclosure policies and how to accept products to review, it will not be included in this panel. It'll be covered tomorrow.

Barb Dybwad of engadget.comis filling in for Mia Price, who works at Weblogsinc,

Claire Zulkey writes for Zulkey.com, also movie reviews for the LA Times and runs a reading series in Chicago called "Funny Haha"

Eugenia Williamson is a writer in Chicago. She runs Literago, and also writes for Time Out Chicago and has written music reviews also.

Maria: What makes a review, since bloggers are functioning as reviewers now?

Barb says her site is middle ground between what a friend might tell you and what a "Consumer Reports" might say.

Eugenia

Claire: When the LA Times started "ShowTracker" they wanted to make sure it was more than a show recap. The editors wanted to focus on making each track or post more than just a recap - more of a piece. It's fun for her because she takes television pretty seriously - she tries to find themes to work on. You don't want to make it overly grandiose but you don't just want to report the facts. I do believe in writing reviews as so moved in an articulate, non-inflammatory way.

Heidi O'Connor: What do you inject besides facts?

Claire: Example, from So You Think YOu Can Dance? She takes details and stories from the show, such as an interview with dancers. They want each post to be intelligible to people who have just tuned into the show, so you're not feeling alienated when you read it, even though you're not a huge follower of the show.

Barb: Try to find relationships between products and others in their class...how it might be compared in terms of feature set; make some kind of value judgment between whether it's better or worse. How does the device fit into her life in terms of workflow and what I do?

Liz Rizzo of Everyday Goddess: Just got into book reviews and now is working on tv shows. What makes her feel the most like a poser when she's writing reviews is there is a need to summarize the show or the book, and I find that kind of boring and difficult. How do you summarize and how much?

Eugenia: In her book reviews she tries to keep summaries down to more cursory sentences. Stay away from plot summary - it's boring. Next time you read a prominent critic in the New York Times, if it's a movie, see just how much they summarize the plot and then go see the movie. If you're a good enough writer it should just be a good piece of writing and you won't give away any spoilers.

Claire: You have to include the spoiler in tv - boil it down to the tiniest nugget.

LiteraryMama spoke about injecting personal experience.

Claire - Default lede from Time Out Chicago is pop-culture related.

Eugenia - You just have to realize who you're writing for. For Time Out it's a general audience. For the NYT it's a very specific audience.

Maria: How do you deal with negative reviews? Do you put them on regardless of your reaction? Do you shy away from them?

Barb: In the vast majority of cases we're reviewing something someone has sent us. We try to work against being nice just to maintain relationships. Shilling positive review of product we don't believe in does our company a disservice. We don't shy away from speaking in the negative at all.

Claire: Book reviews, first-time authors, for instance, might not be ready for a review. With tv, if there's nothing to say we don't say anything. When I do want to say something negatively, I was covering ER last season, and my last post was, "Is that it? For the season and the show?" THere's a certain level of snark that's too much - it's just terrible. You wanted it to be good, it wasn't good, and you don't want to act like you've been waiting to take a big dump all over this.

Eugenia - My mom once told me "If you can't say anything nice." I've written scathing reviews of rock shows, but as far as literago goes, we would never post a negative review of a reading. We want to get Chicagoans excited about literary events.