HOPE = the “Anti-BlogHer”

While I was attending BlogHer this past weekend (”Really?  You were there, because I haven’t read all that much about it on your blog or anywhere else!”) my colleague David was attending what was billed as the Last HOPE conference.   We both had the time of our lives at our respective conferences, but as we chatted real time we realized we were having very different experiences.  While BlogHer can be pink, soft, fluffy and pretty-smelling, HOPE seemed to be filled with guys in black t-shirts who didn’t smell all that good.  Nothing wrong with that in my book.  But of course, I wasn’t there, so I asked David to do a little guest posting on the blog with his report, in an effort to appeal to the testosterone laden among my readership.  Truth be told, I would have gone here in a second.  It’s in my backyard.  It’s my people.  But BlogHer got me first.  So HOPE got David.

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The Last HOPE Conference ran last weekend in NYC, attracting three thousand hackers from around the world.  The conference title is an acronym for Hackers On Planet Earth, and this was the “Last” HOPE because the hotel it has been in since 1994 is being replaced by retail space.

HOPE is run by Wiley author Emmanuel Goldstein, who also is the founder and editor  of 2600, the Hacker Quarterly, and the host of the weekly radio program Off the Hook.  To these attendees, he is the boy that pulled the sword from the stone, the hobbit that can be trusted with The One Ring, and the Rebel Alliance’s only hope against the Sith Lords.  Wiley was fortunate enough to sign Emmanuel to write The Best of 2600, which shipped just two weeks prior to the show.

While I was at the show to launch the book, and hundreds of attendees gladly lined up to buy that book, there was so much more going on than book sales.  Sessions started at 10 am on Friday and ran around the clock until Sunday afternoon.   I’ll get to the sessions shortly, but first a bit more about the ‘distractions’.  There were exhibitors selling soldering kits, lockpick tools, t-shirts, and assorted swag.  There was a huge Lego area for lonely boys to build dinosaurs and robots and such.  The relax & recharge area featured over a dozen hammocks.  I was amazed that these were frequently full; who sleeps in a hammock that a strange hacker was just drooling in?  One of the most exciting areas was Lockpick Village.  In this corner of the hotel vendors and hobbyists mixed, selling lockpicking tools and how-to manuals, or refining their skills with an assortment of locks.  I watched in amusement as an eight year old boy received and totally absorbed a lockpicking lesson; that kid’s teachers don’t stand a chance.

I was running the Wiley table solo, so I couldn’t get to sessions.  I would have loved to have attended the Biohacking session, which promised exciting new follow-ups to questions raised in the 2006 session “Sex Hacking”.  There was a session that discussed all of the many data-filled portable devices carried by business travelers, and what fun a bored hacker might have with these devices hanging out at a restaurant or an airport.  Another session talked about how to get out of the Feds’ new high-tech handcuffs.  The description of that session was priceless, and included this line: “everybody knows how to get out of the cuffs that local law enforcement uses, but the Feds have started to use new high-tech restraints.  Stop by and learn all about the design strengths and vulnerabilities of these new cuffs…”

If somebody manages to pull together another HOPE Conference after the hotel turns into a Claire’s Boutique, here are some tips for future attendees:

·         Be anonymous.  The badges were tombstone-shaped and no badge had a name on it.  Which reminds me, here’s a shout-out to my new friends Bunny, Shogun, Phreak, and Ph00zball; keep it real, players.
·         Wear black.  T-shirts are the way to go, and be sure to hit the Think Geek t-shirt store before heading out.  Favorite phrases on t-shirts:  “I think that stripper really liked me”  and “Resistance is futile (if < 1 ohm)”
·         Bring Red Bull, beef jerky, and adult diapers.  You really don’t want to use the restroom there.

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Thanks David.  That was more than I “hoped” for, especially that last line.  But don’t despair, HOPE appears to be poised to be reborn from the ashes….the NEXT HOPE is scheduled for 2010.  Mark your calendars now!

I blog, therefore I am

I guess Dooce’s post was more inspirational than I thought…this post has been brewing for a little while now, it’s about time I got it up here. 

When IT Boy was born, I started a blog.  Not this one, but one for family only, to view pictures of him and sister, and to hear about what was going on in our lives.  Amusingly, the family I created it for spent a huge amount of time questioning why I was doing this blog.  You might even use the word “scorn”.   I enjoyed blogging, but wasn’t getting a lot of support on the home front and figured I would eventually let the blog go the way of all flesh.  During that time, I was conversing with a co-worker and sent him the link to view the blog.  He sent me back a note, which included the following sentence:

Amazed good that you have found the time and energy to create something that your family will value greatly in future years.

I was stunned to get that note.  It encapsulated exactly what I was trying to do and gave me support at a time I needed it.  To create a legacy for our family.  How could someone who didn’t even know my family see the value of this when my own could not?  I may not have been able to fill out the baby books, or mark where and when every photo was taken, but I could tell the story of our lives in a blog.  When they were grown, I wanted the kids to see it and know exactly what we were going through, and how terribly much those moments as a family meant to me.   Even if no one around me got it in the present, maybe someone would, someday. 

I kept up that blog, and started this one.  And I ignored what people around me said, until I saw Dooce’s post.  It made me remember what this co-worker had said - I had even saved the email, it meant so much to me.  I was so happy that someone else put into writing what I have been thinking. 

The very night I read Dooce’s post, Little IT had dinner with a friend and her family.  When they brought her back, the dad saw my “Confessions of An IT Girl” business cards, and asked what they were.  Mr. IT jumped right in and starting telling him about my blog.  But it wasn’t in the tone I would have hoped for.  Suffice it to say, he was more poking fun at this endeavor than acting like a spouse that was supportive of my efforts. 

The dad (who I should add was not mocking, but was curious in a nice way) asked why I blogged.  I wanted to burst out and say much fun blogging is.  That it’s connected me with people in ways I never thought possible.  I wanted to tell him that I was asked to blog for a new site that another company had just started up.  How I had just completed my first blog interview for that site.  How my blog got Little IT and me on a national TV show.  How I was going to be quoted in a news article a few days.  I wanted to talk about the emails that I have gotten from parents of kids going through early intervention, and how they’ve said how much my blog, *my* little blog, has meant to them.  That somehow, in this crazy experiment, I’ve managed to make a difference.

But I didn’t get to talk about any of that, because the discussion had turned into a monologue on how blogging is ego run amok, and aren’t I crazy to get caught up in all of this.   At that point, I just wanted to get off the topic and said that I blogged for work.  Genuinely curious, the dad asked more, and I answered more, but my heart wasn’t really in it. 

You see, if you asked me that question tonight, I would have told you of all the joyous highs, and a few lows that have come with the territory here.  Sure, people can say what they want, but I have a thick skin.  I get what I am doing, and I am proud of it. 

Mostly, though, I would tell you that I’m doing this to make a difference somewhere.  Be it with my job, my friends, my kids or my world, if I can have an impact or at least try, I’m happy.  Sure, there’s ego here, but I hope people see a lot more than that.  Yes, I do dream of a day when my son and daughter will come here to learn a bit more about their crazy mom.  When they do, I hope they see how very much I love them and their father, and that my legacy may not be a journal, diary or painting, but it’s crafted with as much love and is every bit as meaningful. 

In short, I blog because I want to, and I can.  I thank all of you for coming on this adverture with me.  I promise you, the best is yet to come.

BlogHer Business Day 1

Well, I survived to tell the tale.  I’m not talking about the most excellent BlogHer Business conference in NY.  No, I’m talking about commuting home on MetroNorth.  Mr IT took his usual 5:30 train, and I took a 6:15 train, figuring I would take a cab home from the train station.  Once we got out of the tunnel, I got an email from him telling me that his train was stuck due to brake problems.  Net net, I got home 20 minutes before he did.  Little IT was at play practice, and then at the science fair, so she hadn’t eaten dinner.  We got take away from our local Chinese joint and all sat around the dinner table to decompress.

ANYHOW, back to the matter at hand.  I continue to be impressed at the quality of a conference BlogHer puts on.  Today was a review of the state of social media today and presentation of successful case studies in using social media and engaging bloggers.  The speakers were thoughtful and inspiring, and ranged from a true small business (a farmer who sells worms online), to mainstream marketers from GM and Method, to bloggers from Microsoft.   I was fortunate to experience these speakers surrounded by my co-workers, who were alternately inspired to do more in the social media space, and freaked out/frustrated that we aren’t doing more as a group in this space.  But we’re here, we’re listening, and we’re learning how to join the conversation.

Most of the case studies focused on how a company had a product or service they wanted to promote, and how they decided to court bloggers to help promote it.  The stories were charming in some cases, belying the fact that these are very savvy companies looking to push their products.  This was downplayed in almost all cases.  “We want to engage the bloggers, but not dicate to them.”  “We never tell the bloggers they must write about us.”  In a sense that reminded me of when Amazon first came online.  I would email their editor (editor singular - they have 50 or so, but back then there was only one) with suggestions for books to promote on the site.  They were always selected around a theme, but they were not always Wiley books.  Todd was always happy to take ideas into consideration and often did feature books I suggested.  Now, of course, there’s a 50 page manual that details the cooperative marketing plans involved in something like this.  I can’t help but think that the next time GM approaches someone like the Manic Mommies to provide complimentary transportation for their escape weekend that they will be more savvy (or cynical, take your pick) and present them with a “sponsorship” plan involving beaucoup bucks. 

Right now, we have a small window of time where the bloggers are happy with the engagement these companies are getting into.  Individual bloggers all tell tales of the thrill that came when someone offered them something for free for the first time.  Now, many of them have stacks of products lined up that they have little time to review.  Virginity in the blogosphere dies hard.   

Overall at the conference, there is less networking than at SXSW, but that’s more because it’s a smaller group.  However, the quality in attendance is the cream of the crop.  The people here are a mix of PR and marketing types, true bloggers, and folks in the media business.  I feel I like I made better contacts on line for lunch than I did in a day in Austin.   And I look forward to more of the same tomorrow.   

A Case Study in the Making

At SXSW, I had the good fortune to connect with a lot of people.  One of them was Wendy Piersall, aka eMom.  She made a point of telling me that she’s been spreading the word about Wiley.  How we understand how bloggers operate and really seem to want to exist in a Web 2.0 world.  I was really proud to hear that, because her positive experiences seem to have come not from me or others in the tech group, but from our PR and marketing teams on our parenting books.  It makes you as a marketer realize that we have this great resource out there in bloggers, who can certainly help spread the word about your products and services if you take the time to understand how they operate and how they want to be conversed with.

Now, from Twitter, I learn of the flip side of it.  How when you screw with bloggers and don’t understand the blogosphere, odds are you’re going to pay the price.  And take it from me, hell hath no fury like a mommy blogger scorned. 

Here’s some first person conversation about this situation, but take this as the Cliffs Notes version.  Basically, Johnson & Johnson decides to reach out to Mommy Bloggers.  They offer them a weekend away at something called “Camp Baby.”  A way to relax, hang out with other techno moms, and be pampered.  I believe massages and “hair braiding” were on the agenda.  Of course, they’re going to expose you to some of their products, but you’d expect that, no?

First problem here - some bloggers are invited, others are not.  When the bloggers who are in start talking about it, you’re bound to get some hard feelings from those who didn’t make the cut.  Unavoidable, but you should have a strategy for this.  Rule #1 - Bloggers talk.  Be prepared.  No, you can’t invite everyone, but be able to articulate why some people got in and some didn’t. 

Second, seeing as it is Camp Baby, you’d think childcare would be a possibility, even at a cost.  Maybe you have a baby baby, and need to nurse.  Nothing doing.  No kids are permitted at Camp Baby, and people who are invited are finding out about this NOW and being disinvited because they want to bring their kids. 

Seems obvious to me, but if you’re doing something called “Camp Baby”, and you’re planning on attracting new moms, THEY’RE NOT OFTEN ABLE TO ATTEND WITHOUT THEIR BABIES!  Nursing or not, moms with little ones often do not want to be, and even cannot be separated from them, no matter how fun the “hair braiding” may be.  Where is the surprise in this Johnson & Johnson, a company that makes baby products and is supposed to know this audience better than anyone?

Really bad PR move here, and I fear we’re going to be hearing about this as a case study of how not to reach out to bloggers in the days to come.  A bunch of women speaking at BlogHer Business have already been working to get the full story to discuss it in their panels at the conference.   I’ve read some comments about how J&J blew it, while companies like Graco have made the effort to understand bloggers and earned great marks for their PR activities.  Just goes to show that buzz is great, but buzz can also come back to bite you in the behind.  

The moral of the story?  Same message that good PR folks have preached forever.  Understand how your target wants to be conversed and interacted with and abide by it. 

You say it’s your birthday…

A big giant “happy birthday” goes out to my pal Patricia today.  I’m not normally one for marking the tick of the clock in this blog, but it’s as good an excuse as any to direct you to her blog.  For someone who just started in the blogging game, she’s already made an impact.  She’s an incredibly talented designer and all-around nice person - now she’s the publisher of a wonderful blog where she’s working to create an “artful life.”  From the beginning, the blog was her own, reflecting her life, her loves and her personality to the max.  It’s embarrassing to think she once asked me for help - now I’m the one planning to come to her and ask how she does it all.

Happy birthday my dear!  I hope this year brings great joy to you and your wonderful family!

Welcome to the Blogosphere - PVE Design

Recently, I gave a talk at a Wiley Lunch and Learn session where I demonstrated the technical aspects of setting up a blog.  The example I used was a local mom and friend who is an incredible artist. 

Well, the blogosphere will be happy to know that the amazing woman behind PVE Design has her blog up and running.  After reading the first few entries, I wondered what took Patricia so long.  Her spot on observations and careful thoughts are a natural for this format - it’s like she’s been a blogger all her life.  

Subtitled “a penchant for creating an artful life”, the blog treats readers to selections of her art with the backstory on how it came to be.  She also talks about some artists who inspire her.  Even someone who dresses mono-chromatically for fear of clashing colors and who has a daughter who thinks the pink camouflage shirt matches the green camo pants because they’re both camo can be inspired by her writings and art.  Read the PVE Design blog and aspire to greatness! 

 edited to include the hotlink!  see what happens when you write these late at night to post the next day!

If I had more time…

This isn’t going to be some philosophical post about life and loss, or what the holidays mean to me, or any crap like that.  No, this is an egotistical and self-serving follow up to our Lunch and Learn yesterday.

Basically, I had 10 minutes to talk about the mechanics of how to set up a blog.  I used my friend’s company as a case study for the exercise.  Unlike Eva, who had careful notes with her on the podium, or Joe, who can wing anything and sound like has been prepping for months, I kinda let things fly up there.  I got into Blogger, set up the blog, and talked about how to write a post and add things to the sidebar.  It wasn’t bad, but as soon as I sat down, I thought of about a thousand things I wanted to say and show people.  I could have gone on for a hour up there (not that anyone would have wanted to hear me).  So here I go…this is what I left out and would have included if I had more time, and frankly if I had thought of it.

1. I wanted to show how frakken easy it is to set up a blog on Blogger.  Again, pick your poison - you can use WordPress, TypePad, whatever.  It’s gotten so turnkey that anyone can have a blog up and running in minutes.  What I didn’t say is how intimidating that first post can be for a blogger.  You think, that’s where you set the tone for everything, the first thing people see when the come to your site.  WRONG!  It’s just a post.  Put something there.  Break the seal.  Write it, and then move on to post 2, 3, and so on.  Once you get past that hurdle, you’re ready to make it happen.  Joe talked about how his entries take no more than 5-10 minutes to be conceptualized, and little more than that to be written.  I don’t think he was saying that applied to the first few blog entries a person does.  Yes, it does get easier over time, but don’t beat yourself up if at first you’re a little rusty. 

2. I talked about how you can hide your blog from other viewers and search engines, so if you do want to start one, you can get it up and running to a point where you’re comfortable to have others look at this.  But be careful with this.  You’ll find reasons why it’s not picture perfect, all buttoned up and ready for the world to see, when the reality is that any blog will always be a work in progress.  Hopefully, it will never be “done.” 

My blog header is not perfect, I’m always fooling around with layouts, and every time I think it’s running pretty easily, something happens that causes me to rethink everything.  That’s the fun of the format.  You can adjust on the fly to whatever direction you decide to go.

3. When I was in school, a teacher I respected greatly said that writing was an art, and needed to be treated as such.  Just as you would set aside time each day to practice an instrument, you need to set aside time each day to write, she said.  It makes sense now that I am blogging.  I set aside time, sometimes first thing in the morning before everyone is out the door, other times at lunch, to “feed the blog”.  As Joe said, if you are struggling and nothing is coming to you, move on.  But get into the habit of trying to put something in there around 5 times per week.  The more you do it, the easier the words flow. 

That’s all I can think of for now.  I do hope to find more of my colleagues out there in the blogosphere.  For me, that’s the ultimate payoff.

Lunching and Learning and Wishing and Hoping

Today is Monday, a day that normally finds me in PJs and bunny slippers working in the home office.  But I made the trek into the main office today, because it’s a Lunch and Learn (!) day. 

What, you may ask, is a Lunch and Learn?  It’s an opportunity for our marketers to get together and talk about new technologies and how they impact our jobs.  Today is the blogging L&L, and I’ve been asked to talk about how to set up a blog. 

Against my personal preferences, I will be using Bloggerto do this demo.  I much prefer WordPress, but have to admit that it’s not always that intuitive at times (must be why WordPress For Dummies has been the #1 on the most popular blogging books list on Amazon).  I’ve heard TypePad is a breeze, but it’s a paid service, and not everyone will want to fork over their hard-earned moola to set up one of these puppies.  It’s in my best interests and everyone else’s for that matter, to go lowest common denominator here.

Wish me luck!

Work is a four-letter-word

This week is a busy one in IT Land.  My company is involved in our tri-annual division wide sales meeting.  It’s being held at a hotel not far from our offices, but it still presents many challenges in terms of commuting and child care arrangements.  I decided not to stay in the hotel, because I couldn’t bear packing for myself and juggling the kids when I’ll have to do it anyhow on Thursday before we go to Vegas.  It’s six of one, really, but I do enjoy sleeping in my own bed better than any hotel. 

Today was a big meeting day, and I got to present our lead spring 2008 titles in front of the whole group.  I decided to channel El Jobso before a big MacWorld keynote, which gave me powers beyond those of any superhero.  In other words, it went well.  Reps were really excited about our list, especially all those yummy social media books.  LinkedIn For Dummies, Facebook For Dummies and Sybex’s Radically Transparent were three of the titles that garnered the most discussion.  The latter book is particularly amusing, because our business group also has a transparency title.  My counterpart on the business side confessed to spending some time on Google last night looking for good examples of transparency.  I’m surprised he didn’t find me in the hunt, as I was doing the exact same thing.   I led off my presentations with Microsoft 2.0, and author Mary Jo Foley was kind enough to share some of the coolest tidbits from the manuscript that I could share with the group.   I have two more days of this, and then I head on vacation.  Must.  stay.  focused.

It was also nice hearing from co-workers who have read ye ole blog.  I’m hoping more of them jump on the bandwagon and start their own blogs.  Can’t have all the joy to myself, you know…

Fancy meeting you here

My thanks to Katie for informing me about the “blog stats” feature on WordPress. I had been using Sitemeter, but that service gives you different feedback than WordPress itself can provide.

The most fascinating thing for me to see is what search terms are bringing people to this site. Some make total sense - searchers wondering how to get a book published, if they need an agent, or searching on a specific book. Some are the result of words in the blog that mean nothing to the overall blog - for instance, a large number of people last week looking for “pot-belly girl”. After my initial alarm, I realized that term was in an entry about hyphens. However, I assure you that I am not her, so if you seek her, look elsewhere.

There is another trend that I want to address. There are a disturbing amount of people, most probably men, but to be fair, not limited to that gender, searching for “things to say to a girl.” This search term, as well as similar ones, are leading people to this site at an alarming rate - at least 5x per day. I fear….well, to be fair, I fear a number of things here. I fear for the people who need this information. I fear that they are not finding answers here. And I fear for why exactly they want this info in the first place.

So, dear blog reader who needs to know how to talk to girls, I’d like to provide you with some suggestions that might prove useful to you. First off, I’m not the typical girl. I’m an IT Girl (see header of blog). I’m the type of girl who will talk you out of the 48″ HDTV and talk you into spending a measly $300 more for the 52″ screen. I’m the type of girl who will take a conversation about a potted plant on a book cover into a 5 minute long”Bring me a shrubbery!” routine. I’m the type of girl who has a complete set of dice at home in case a quick game of D&D breaks out in the ‘hood. I’m the type of girl who is so excited to find a cool “red” shirt to wear to a Red Bulls game that she forgets it’s actually corporate swag:

Too dorky for words, I know.   As soon as I saw myself in a mirror, I bought a Red Bulls shirt, which corrected the dork infraction. 

Despite this, I believe that there are some things that all women have in common, and as such, I do feel that I can offer advice to those of you looking for advice on how to talk to girls. And my advice is this - don’t focus as much on what to say to her, focus on what *she* is saying. There’s rarely much more important for a woman than to feel like someone is listening to her. Ask her questions about her day, her job, her interests, whatever. Really listen to her responses. You’ll hopefully find yourself in a meaningful conversation in no time. What she will remember is that you cared enough to ask, which is probably the best thing that someone can say to a girl.  For even if all she did was talk about herself non-stop while you nod your head, she’ll probably remember that as a good thing.  Especially if you find yourself *not* talking about action figures, 20-sided dice, and Halo 3.

If others, male or female, geek or not, have suggestions as well, I’m open to posting them.  Let’s help our fellow Internet searchers today!