Women’s Conference
Posted on | July 29, 2009 | 18 Comments
Wow, thank you all for your comments! Okay, I guess I have to do this thing now. So I will. Why not. I plan events for 300 people, what’s a few hundred more? And whole days’ worth of planning and hotel negotiations and sponsors and panelists and OH MY GOD, PEOPLE. So I’ve partnered up with Kiala and I suspect we’ll need a third.
We have no name for this yet.
It will be in Portland.
Dudes are welcome, but it’s focused on women. The idea is that men are already ahead in this field. I want the top names at this conference — I know, aim for the stars. And many of those are men. So we’ll bring in some dudes to speak and some to network and, of course, women speakers and network people will be there too. Men can attend too, but because guys are already ahead and more prevalent in social media/ tech the majority of the attendees will be women. This conference will be aimed at getting the attendees further along than they were before.
What’s the focus?
I really like the word interactive. So it’s not just a blogging/social media convention, but also a tech convention too. I think we’ll call it interactive. With an emphasis on blogging and using those tools. But there are other opportunities that I can’t see right now.
Here’s the truth of it: I’m great at organizing stuff. Booking spaces, booking people, arranging stuff, times, meeting people, but I’m not the knowledgeable one about tech. That’s where Kiala comes in. She’s the tech blogger for the SF Weekly, you know. And she knows people and stuff about what’s interesting and what’s coming down the pipe and what the early adopters are adopting. She’ll have a better bead on those opportunities.
The conference will help get more women into the early adopter crowd.
Who is this aimed at?
Women who want more from their technology. I hope artists and writers attend. I also hope super geeky chicks attend. I hope people wanting to move their business and their blog and their own education about the magic box attend. It’s aimed at women who want to explore interactive tools to help advance whatever it is they’re doing.
What I want from it personally is some intensive CSS and self-hosting instruction, oodles of networking, and to be exposed to the cutting edge interactive stuff. I have no idea what that is. But the people at the conference will tell me.
I’d like to teach a writing for the internet class. I think people would like that.
The sponsors need to have that cutting edge interactive tool that their pitching. The sponsors must be educating the attendees too, instead of sucking the blood from the women there.
And, this is Portland. And those of you who know me, and Back Fence know that I need to be entertained and basically every event I do is with the sole intention of entertaining me. So Kiala and I are dreaming up things to keep it great and to embody Portland’s culture. I’m thinking of networking mixers outside catered by the food carts. And bands playing, bars participating, galleries and whatever.
It’s an exploration of technology while taking advantage of Portland’s established, wonderful arts and culture. Also, we want to emphasize: NOT BORING. And the food will be good. Dear god, the food will be good.
And, we’re taking suggestions. We have no name for it yet, no URL. And if you have said you’d help in comments or email or twitter, please know I have kept all of these pieces of writing with your names attached and we will call on you to help. Seems to me the hunger for this is overwhelming and the response is going to be a lot more than we expected. It’s a fantastic opportunity for event producers, but I also anticipate some scrambling.
Kiala has a lot of stuff happening this week, as do I. Next week, we start planning. We’ll have it in a year. I know that’s a long time, but there it is. These things don’t happen overnight, unfortunately.
Comments are open, always, for more suggestions, thoughts, concerns, ideas, whatever. You can email me at melissa [at] backfencepdx [dot] com. Twitter: @melissalion. Sometime soon, we’ll move this whole conversation to the new unnamed unpurchased URL, but for now, it’s here.
Comments
18 Responses to “Women’s Conference”
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July 29th, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
Would you be open to some of the panelist/speakers being men? I know it’s a women’s conference.. But I know some smart men
July 29th, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
Joleine: Yep, men are welcome as speakers, panelists and attendees.
July 29th, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
Cool.. I’ll see if I can sweet talk hubby and/or some of his designer friends to come up with something to teach us about CSS.. and I know Mike knows about self-hosting, as he does all of our stuff w/ Expression Engine and he’s smart
July 29th, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
That’s me! I’m Kiala!
I know about techythings, interactive things and social webithings.
I know what good blogs look like and what bad blogs look like. Mine for example. My blog looks terrible because I never have time to fix it. I promise to find time.
Although, in comparison to the Oregonlive blog, it looks like GOLD.
Anyway, I’m so excited to be a part of this. Dream big ladies. BIG.
And funny. I don’t want no boring ass tech symposium camp bs, yo. (I have no idea what I just said)
July 29th, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
“The sponsors must be educating the attendees too, instead of sucking the blood from the women there.”
That’s the key.
July 29th, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
: )
July 29th, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
Let me know where you want me, cause I need to have my hands on the hips of this conga line.
Oh, yes.
July 29th, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
Can I have my hands on Michelle’s hips in the conga line?
July 29th, 2009 @ 4:16 pm
I want to go even if only because I only know 10% of what I want to know. I love hands-on and I love opportunities to listen and ask questions. I’m intrigued…
July 29th, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
That’s lots of people. I’ll be hiding in the corner, but I’ll be listening.
July 29th, 2009 @ 9:11 pm
I’ve been a professional geek for close to 25 years (yes, I’m old!) and in my spare time, dabbled in blogging and twitter and Facebook because I like new geeky media. This sounds like a perfect conference, as conferences go. I hope you find a fun name to identify it, rather than a conference
Look forward to following along in your planning.
July 30th, 2009 @ 8:06 am
I want to come. But I am not a famous blogger or a techie. Does this exclude me?
And if I come, I want to meet my famous almost friend MELISSALION…….I love the authors……..
Ok, the biggie question is….how much do these things normally cost? Ugh.
July 30th, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
I love this idea. If you need another techie person, my partner Betty Please is a web designer. She knows CSS and is learning PHP. She is also pretty familiar with quite a few CMSs. I’m sure there other strings of letters she knows that I’m leaving out, but I barely speak English with fluency, let alone web code.
July 30th, 2009 @ 5:06 pm
I was just wondering what made the food in Chicago such crap, because, Chicago has f’ing awesome food from lowbrow to highbrow.
Also, do these conferences provide breakfast, lunch, dinner? Just wondering.
July 30th, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
Because it is for women, I think there should be a MRS. Potato Head in the bag, rather than a MR.
There, I have helped you with the planning.
July 31st, 2009 @ 11:39 am
I’ll help! I’ll help! I don’t know how from all the way over here, but I’ll help you!
July 31st, 2009 @ 11:41 am
Maybe I can make some cupcakes or something? I figured out how to use my oven, finally. Maybe I can teach a class on that? That’s technomological,right? It’s digital and it makes beeping sounds and it has several buttons and some dials.
July 31st, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
Crissy should be the keynote speaker.