I’m at BlogHer (a conference for women bloggers)… and let me tell you – Beauty is everywhere!

I’m at BlogHer (a conference for women bloggers)… and it’s pretty amazing on a lot of levels. I look around and there is a sea of women – radiant & connected both literally & figuratively.

The tables are packed with people talking to each other. They are
young and old, and with an astounding variety of color even for a tech conference (well, sort of a tech conference… most of those assembled are not techies, but regular people who happen to blog).

Still, in a
miracle of multi-tasking, almost every one of us has a sleek laptop
plugged in (sporting some outstandingly beautiful screensavers, I might
add) to a wireless connection, and a digital camera ready to capture
the excitement electronically.

Many are speed-typing their experience directly into their
blogs, making this a ‘live’ event for the 1000s of women that are unable to be
here in person. This ‘culture of generosity’ (or ‘culture of love’ as
some of my friends began to call it after the first cocktail party) was
the dominant note sustained throughout the whole conference.

While waiting for my first workshop (Primping Your Blog) to start, a beautiful woman wandered by my table looking confused. She was disoriented having come in late, so I invited her to join us. After she sat down I read her name tag & saw she was Susie Bright! She didn’t stay long, since the wireless connection sucked at that table (like everywhere else as it turned out), but before she left she gave me one of her ‘clits up!’ buttons, which was very cool.

I’m loving the lunch keynote which is on Web 2.0. Because this conversation is part of BlogHer, we’re talking about Web 2.0 through the eyes of women and how our particular sensibilities, values and concerns have contributed to and continue to impact this latest iteration of technological development.

Listening to Caterina Fake who was part of the original team that created Flikr (now acquired by Yahoo), and Meg Hourihan  who helped start Blogger (now part of the Google empire) talk about the role they played in their companies, as women, was awesome. I felt an incredible pride and connection to them (& by extension all the ‘girl geeks’ in the room), hearing about how their passions and commitment to a more ‘personal’ atmosphere, to promoting individual ‘voice’ & creative expression, creating connection & community was central to the success of these seminal enterprises.

My celebration of them is a celebration of myself, and of what we as women bring to the world of technology and to everything we do. We have a contribution that makes a real difference, that has real value, and seeing it expressed this clearly all around me is hugely stimulating and empowering.