The Amazing Riveting Blogging Boomers Carnival hits #65 this week at LifeTwo with pieces on everything from Fifties Drive-Ins to looking great at a wedding this summer to conversion to Orthodox Judaism (that’s mine.) The Carnival is free; bring your own cotton candy.
Tag: blogging
BLOGGING BOOMERS: THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL
Once a week I’m part of a "blogging boomers" blog carnival. It’s always interesting and diverse. Take a look at this week’s set of posts. at the home of the spectacular Cafe Glam.
EVERYBODY LOVES A CARNIVAL – BLOG OR OTHERWISE (BLOG CARNIVAL #49)
I’m now part of this week’s Boomer Blog Carnival – my first. I was invited by the indomitable Wendy Spiegel of GenPlus; it’s a way to get to know new bloggers and enjoy the work of others we might not remember to check often enough. The entries are fun and varied. I’m privileged to be a member. Stop by – you’ll enjoy it.
BACK FROM BLOGHER 07
This post is a valentine. I learned at the Blog Her 07 Conference – in a story telling panel, that a story is a series of unanswered questions – answered gradually over time. But I have to start with the answer today because it informs everything else.
That answer begins with the three women in this photograph – (left to right) Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone and Jory des Jardin, whose vision led to the gathering of almost 800 women who streamed into Chicago for the third annual BlogHer Conference. From its small beginnings in 2005, this conference and the community surrounding it has become something far more than the sum of its parts. The reason for its success and for the remarkable warmth and commitment to the community from the community emerges from this trio’s commitment to building concept, content and structure from the ideas, perspectives and attitudes of the bloggers — us — ourselves.
It’s tough to describe the high of so many powerful, rebellious women gathered in one place – dressed up, made up (this photo is from Suburban Turmoil) and smart as whips. Why begin with "dressed up, made up?" Because I’m old enough to remember when women only got dressed up when they were dressing for men. Now we dress for one another; our joy in one another’s company is boundless. Most of the women I spent the weekend with are too young to remember that, but for me it’s one of many wondrous facts emerging from this conference. Times have changed.
Then too, the entire conference empowers us. In fact, one of the major BlogHer initiatives is the product of an idea from just two bloggers: Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann (That’s Cooper on the left.) They and BlogHer’s founders have created BlogHers Act and it’s about to become a year-long initiative on global health issues — topic and focus chosen by BlogHers. How did it happen? A survey seeking nominations for topics and then a vote that chose global health. It’s an exciting enterprise — all generated from within the BlogHer community
The rest of the conference was also quite wonderful. Some details:
*That Art of Storytelling panel I mentioned, which I attended almost by accident, was moving in its honesty and support of artfully structured storytelling rather than the impulsive writing that blogging can become. Birdie Jaworski, Claire Fontaine and Ree were the generous, inspiring speaker and their words will stay with me for a long time.
*Another, on branding and promoting yourself and your blog, was fascinating. I’ve been in journalism most of my life and know all the obvious "tricks" people use to get attention, but there’s lots of thought and planning beyond that stuff and, even more importantly, serious discipline.
*Since the Presidential election is [only?] a year away, there was a Get Out the Vote panel too – with some real heavyweights brought together by BlogHer political editor Morra Aarons: Kim Gandy from NOW, and BlogHer’s own Lisa Sabatier (seen together in this photo) and others.
There was a second political panel, Earn Our Votes – also organized by Morra – to select issues women bloggers wanted to see the candidates focus on.
*I co-chaired a Media Training – which I had proposed because blogging women are of so much more interest to reporters but aren’t all experienced in managing those relationships- with Rachel of Sarcastic Journalist. We had great questions – the audience set the agenda for the panel and we got lots of positive feedback, which felt great.
Most of all – beyond the sessions and the very interesting keynotes was the community that BlogHer is. If I write too much about it I’ll get all goopy (I do do that) but in an era of Third Wave and post modern and generational blah blah these few days bring together women of all sorts in a common space, help them find common ground and just plain have a wonderful time – with one another.
If that doesn’t deserve a valentine, I don’t know what does.
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY? (REDUX)
I’m under a horrendous deadline and getting ready for Blog Her at the same time so I’m offering a couple of "best of" posts from my early days on Vox. This one is here because of a conversation I had with someone I’d mentioned in a post – she would have rather I hadn’t. Here’s the dilemma:
At BlogHer (last year – 2006) there was a great debate among the "mommy bloggers" about how much to reveal about one’s children. Much of what was best in my career (as well as, of course, my private life) came from my kids – literally. They’re why I finally wrote a book [for kids.] They’re why I got interested in kids’ books and began writing book reviews for the New York Times and Washington Post and eventually served as early children’s book editor at Amazon. They’re the reason I did some of my best TV pieces – about kids learning to ski, learning disabilities, etc. You get the idea. BUT
Once they were over 7 or so I always asked before I mentioned them in anything I wrote. I kind of felt that it was my gig and they had their own lives. Now this is a problem. Michael Chabon says:
“Telling the truth, when the truth matters most, is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn’t give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn’t court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth. "
He’s right I think – I can feel myself hanging back when those "other people’s secrets" begin to emerge — and if affects my writing. It’s true even of the most innocent things: something really lovely was said to me this week by one of my kids but it would expose HIM and I can’t do it.
Granted, most moms who blog have far younger kids than my adult sons but it’s an interesting question. Any thoughts?
Whatever we think about this though it gave me an excuse to share one of my favorite Michael Chabon quotes. (of very very many…)
DON’T LET THEM! ACT ON MARCH 30
When you first hear the term "cyberstalking" you think it’s a joke. Well guess what. It’s not. Read this. It’s the post of a prominent blogger who has canceled speaking engagements and remains frightened and close to agoraphobic because of vicious and threatening online attacks, both verbal and visual. I started to post one of the photos, but just couldn’t do it. So instead you see how I felt upon reading Kathy Siera’s post.
Death threats, violently edited photos of bloggers as well as violent, vicious prose, are a grave threat not only to women blogers (it appears that women are particularly targeted) but to the wonder that is the blog universe. Those who oppose such behavior have to take a stand – we’re the activist types anyway or we wouldn’t be writing so publicly. SO. 
Here, from the wonderful, generous Andy Carvin (left) and other sites, are some things we can do:
Join Stop Cyberbullying, a site created by the aforementioned Andy Carvin.
Post on our own blogs and/or post comments on participating blogs – which Andy will include in "Stop Cyberbullying" site
Visit and share existing resources like Cyberbully.org or this parent brochure
Learn more from other sites like this one.
Check out BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone’s Hating Hate Speech, in which she discusses this issue and offers the BlogHer community guidelines.
Think of something else, do it and post the idea on Stop Cyberbullying. OH and remember to tag anything you write about this with the stopcyberbullying tag so it will show up in searches. Let’s not be silent in the face of this threat to our community. Thanks, Andy, for giving us a tool to make noise!
MORE BLOGGER ETHICS THOUGHTS
THIS IS FROM MORRA’S VERY FINE AND ALWAYS THOUGHTFUL WOMEN AND WORK BLOG, IN A POST ENTITLED: "With all due respect Cindy." Comments are closed on this post so I’m quoting her post here and then posting a response.
MORRA: "First off, I don’t have a Typekey account, so I am going to do a trackback instead.
Cindy Samuels, who is brilliant, is wrong on this post:"
“One of my favorite bloggers sent me a note asking my opinion about a service that pays bloggers to write about client products. It’s not secret, the writers disclose their contracts. Even so, I told her that as an old newsie, I thought that, unless she was desperate for money, she shouldn’t go near the idea. WHY?”
AFTER THE QUOTE, SHE ADDED"Journalists do endorsements, why can’t I? Not that anyone’s asking, of course."
Morra, who unlike me really IS brilliant, asks a fair question. But I don’t think reputable journalists endorse products. They don’t do commercials and use their own language to sell products. If they are busy selling in the context of their coverage – or we are, in the context of our blogs, then why should anyone believe us about anything? How do they know which things are paid for and which are not? When is a blog a blog and when does it become solely a marketing tool?
I may be showing my age, since I was trained as a reporter long ago, but I shudder to think of the consequences of putting PAID ad copy into a post. Let’s keep this conversation going – I respect Morra too much to do anything but think harder about this…..
ALL POWER (or at least MORE power) TO THE BLOGGERS!
Yesterday I went to a briefing on political blogging held by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet and mega-PR agency Edelman Associates. It was pretty interesting. Among the findings: (Read to the bottom – you’ll be glad you did)
- 27% of the US population reads a blog in any given week (@60,193,913 folks – larger than the adult pops of CA, NY, TX combined)34%+ American influentials (people who influence others – logical, right?) read a blog at least once/week
- 28% of American adults that have read a blog have taken action on based on in- formation they received on that blog.
The US age breakdown is kind of interesting too.
-
18-24s are largest blog users, as you’d imagine. They report reading a blog an average of 1.6 days/week.
- The next highest isn’t 25-34 (many of whom fell into a kind of "gap" in school computing access and average 0.8 pages/week) but 35-44s who average around 1.05 days/week.
- Then there’s another surprise – the next age cadre, 45-54 is lowest so far at around 0.7 days/week
- Those early Boomers 55-64 are higher, matching the 25-34s at 0.8.
- 65+ averages only around 0.5.
And gender – are we traveling the blogosphere less intensely than the guys? Well the only stats the report had were for political blogs and their researcher says the numbers were pretty much in the margin of error:
- Blog readers who read political blogs: 24% female – 30% male
- Take action from political blog info: 26% female – 30% male]]
A second study, released in October 2006 by IPDI and @dvocacy Inc. showed:
- Daily political blog readers were 75% male and 25% female
- Daily “all others” blog readers were 60% male and 40% female
OK NOW here’s why you read to the bottom: women don’t do their politics exclusively on “political” blogs – not at all! Read Been There or Mom-101 or Lizawashere and see for yourself. As usual, we don’t fit into anyone’s categories – combining family, food, politics and love into the total life we all live. Good for us — we just have to make sure the pundits know this too – so they can find some of our brilliant sisters as they think, write and provoke us to do both better.
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY? (PART 2)
I just found the ultimate wise woman post for how to deal with a teenager. Respectfully. Apportion responsibility gradually. Etc. It dealt with something I posted here a couple of days ago about blogging and our kids. And their privacy. And just who owns whose life? Everyone loves Grace Davis anyway, but this was just such a great thing. Take a look.
When I worked at iVillage Robert Schwebel, who is still their resident child psychologist and a wonderful man, told me he sees successful child rearing as "the gradual transfer of power." Doesn’t that make perfect sense? And what Grace did, with such, well, grace, was to transfer, to her daughter, power over her own story and respect for her privacy. I’m just so impressed.
WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?
At BlogHer there was a great debate among the “mommy bloggers” about how much to reveal about one’s children. Much of what was best in my career (as well as, of course, my private life) came from my kids – literally. They’re why I finally wrote a book [for kids.] They’re why I got interested in kids’ books and began writing book reviews for the New York Times and Washington Post and eventually served as early children’s book editor at Amazon. They’re the reason I did some of my best TV pieces – about kids learning to ski, learning disabilities, etc. You get the idea. BUT
Once they were over 7 or so I always asked before I mentioned them in anything I wrote. I kind of felt that it was my gig and they had their own lives. Now this is a problem. Michael Chabon says:
“Telling the truth, when the truth matters most, is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn’t give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn’t court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.
He’s right I think – I can feel myself hanging back when those “other people’s secrets” begin to emerge — and if affects my writing. It’s true even of the most innocent things: something really lovely was said to me this week by one of my kids but it would expose HIM and I can’t do it.
Granted, most moms who blog have far younger kids than my adult sons but it’s an interesting question. Any thoughts?
Whatever we think about this though it gave me an excuse to share one of my favorite Michael Chabon quotes. (of very very many…)