BlogHer 09: Commercialized Chaos

I know you’re disappointed I didn’t blog all weekend like I did the Mom 2.0 Summit. I didn’t actually bring my computer.

Gasp.

I know, right?

I thought with the title In Real Life, perhaps I should give real life a chance. Seems it didn’t matter because the WiFi in the hotel was about as good as the WiFi in your car; nonexistent.

Let me premise how I feel about BlogHer by saying I recognize I was going to a place where people sit behind their computer all day and have little to no interaction with breathing human beings. I figured the social skills may be off or lacking. I have been to conventions before and at the worst they tend to be busy, loud, crowded and at the best, inspirational. I didn’t go with the intentions on creating 100s of new readers and have deep conversations that lead to book signings and epiphanies.

I went to build on relationships that I had already formed online and cultivate the friendships I felt so bonded to in a day to day setting. I do feel that was accomplished. I want to personally thank Alicia, Bridgette, Renee, Nicole, Kadi, Jacqueline, Victoria, Laurie, Amanda, Tanya, Sarah, Clarissa, Jenna, Alyson, Trisha, and Kim for making my weekend memorable and wrapping up the emotions of the past year into real world memories. I am grateful to have met and experienced every one of you, who are all uniquely special and equally important to me.

That being said, I do not see myself attending BlogHer anytime in the future unless I am given the privilege of speaking, which is quite doubtful as I am not an A list blogger and I don’t run in the speaking circles.

I commonly referred to my experience at BlogHer as Mommies Gone Wild. Anytime you take 1500 women out of their normal computer induced coma and put never ending  (free) cocktails in their hands, you’re going to have one big sloshed group of freebie-grabbing, drunk posting, women.

And some of them prefer doing that nude up and down the escalators in the Sheraton with a blow-up doll in tow.

Sexy.

To break it down, here are the top reasons I wont be attending BlogHer again:

1) I have experienced it once. I think once is enough for a conference. Unless you truly walk away feeling awe inspired, I think you should continue on and find other ways to meet and gain something  from.  Blissdom, Type A Mom, BlogWorld Expo, Web 2.0, Mom2.0 Summit, can bring interesting groups of people together and draw different kinds of crowds. My point is if you believe conferences, discussions, and meetings bring value to your blog and your brand, you will find something useful in each one, and since the majority of us are on a budget, I say spread the ‘you’ around.

MomDot is having a meetup as well and we will be revealing ours here shortly, including location, focus, and topics of discussion. I am looking forward to telling you all but cant just yet.

2) The expense is rough. The irony to me is that conferences like BlogHer are very geared around the newer bloggers, but as a newer blogger I couldn’t imagine dumping the kind of money it takes to attend this into it for as little return. On the flip side, the bloggers that go with sponsorships generally do not need the majority of the classes that are offered up. Its like a catch 22. Our team was fortunate enough to go sponsored, but I felt that the value I could offer our companies once I was there was pretty low. I am actually thinking of tearing up one sponsorship check I haven’t cashed because I was barely able to even get their products out. There was so MUCH commercialization, that sponsors were relatively unnoticed. No one cared about what they got, they just took it. I imagined the hotel was trashed when it was over.

Might I suggest to future sponsors that are insistent on passing out samples, to instead pass out gift cards or codes to BlogHer that that they can include in their welcome packs.

Then it turns from the focus of all the “stuff” back to the conversation. Nothing to haul around, nothing to grab or worry about, nothing to ship back or crowd up your hotel room, and the women truly interested in your company have ways to order samples free of charge once they return home. Overall I think could be less waist for the companies and the environment.

I would like to thank Label Daddy, Kids Coats, Eyes Cream Shades, iToys, Baby Legs, Just Stop Staring, and Twinkling Tees for all your support and assistance in getting our team to BlogHer this year.

3) Commercialization. Lets go ahead and get into it.

It was bad.

But what can you expect? In a blogosphere with so many blogs inundated with products, reviews, giveaways, and PR releases, it didn’t come as a shocker. (PR Blackout anyone, snicker) I think people really noticed because it was in your face. I felt like it was more one big long commercial for a brand, rather than a conference for bloggers. I realize that it costs oodles of money to host this type of event and the entrance fees for the companies pay for the rooms for the bloggers, so again, a tough situation. But the women throwing themselves at backpacks, pens, organic tampons, you would have thought we were in the Great Depression. I had so much stuff, I donated the majority of it over to Tanya for her charity drive. And for the record, the swag bags at our dinner were some of the best…they included full bottles of Jose Cuervo courtesy of Circle PR.

4) Stress. The stress leading up to the conference seemed high. The stress going was high, the stress there was high, and the stress coming home…you guessed it, still high. I am in a unique position that I run a community, not just a blog. So our community wanted to meet and not everyone is going to mesh as well in life as they do online. Unfortunately when those relationships are not perfect, and you are the community leader, you still take the heat or atleast part of the breakdown of those relationships, back to your own site. If Person A and Person B dont get along and they both spend all day inside YOUR forums, guess whose problem it now is.

Yours.

Well, mine. HA!

5) Interaction. I am not a fan of “VIP” parties. Yes, I did appreciate the invites to some of the parties. But at the same time, I am getting ready to leave where 5 people I wanted to hang out with were not invited. And while not intended this way, it seemed a way to pit bloggers against each other by who got what and who was going where, when really we should have been united.

I would have rather seen a list of parties and those that were restricted for space or monetary reasons to just have a “first 200 people to get here gets in”. That way those that really were interested in that particular party could get their early enough to attend and those that didnt, just didnt get in.  Just seems like a better way to balance out separating the “elite” from the “non-elite”. And since BlogHer is about bloggers finding their tribes and assisting newer members, keeping out the ‘unknowns’ just seems against the entire principle.

Now some of the parties that were more open were so crowded and wall to wall that you couldn’t even have a discussion and you most certainly couldn’t even talk to the sponsor or move in the congestion. I walked right up to the 704 party and walked right back out again.

Trisha = claustrophobia.

6) Stuck up PR reps: We get it. You’re the “Chanel” of Public relations…you told us. You also told us you don’t just work with anyone and you fly people out and visit them to decide if they are good enough to work with you. Then you continued to dump on everyone  at the convention by saying that is why you are in a suite and not talking to everyone out there in the lobby…we have to come to you, you are so special.

You’re special alright. Why the HELL are you at BlogHer then? If you don’t want to talk to new people, talk about funding gone wrong.

And we get that you don’t like the week long PR Blackout cause you didn’t actually READ what we were saying. But when you badmouth us to 4 bloggers that belong to our community (unknowingly) and use the word “F**k”, it doesn’t  come off that professional. We are bloggers, we make our living off of blunt honesty and brutal discussion. You’re a company. You should be professional.

*Cough*

Also, let me tell you a situation Alicia and I found ourselves in in the elevator. We were walking around the hotel passing out chocolate fortune cookies (Yum!) and we got in the elevator with a Nikon rep. This was on Saturday. We saw her getting into the elevator and offered her a fortune cookie, which she took, and said she would take down to her colleagues. We get in and I said “Oh! We were at your party last night it was great” and she made some unmemorable comment and then I said very nicely “I was surprised that Nikon didn’t put mini cameras in their swag bags, after all, it was exclusive and it is Nikon” and she holds up the fortune cookie i gave her and said, in a very snarky way, “Cameras are worth, like, 300 more of these”.

Uh, so whats your point lady.

I responded “This isn’t my company, I’m a blogger.” (i was referring to the total kick ass fortune cookies she just insulted). Then I said “Land of Nod gave out custom high chairs that cost hundreds of dollars to its private party”.

She slightly rolls her eyes.

Our floor comes up. I walk out and said “Way to represent your brand!”

Nikon had an open bar, a celebrity, 2 massage therapists, stretch limos to and from the party, a makeup artist, catering of shrimp and steak biscottis, and 2 professional hair stylists to do your hair. Maybe a small camera might have been a better use of the funding since everyone would have used it the rest of the weekend to take the BlogHer photos and gone on to advertise them continuously.  We are BLOGGERS. We share PHOTOS.

But hey, what do I know, clearly I am a moron.

I am not out to tell you not to attend and that was not the point of this write up. Overall, my experience was actually quite fun, but it wasn’t based on the conference, it was based on the women I was lucky enough to be surrounded with. And isn’t that what its really about? You get out of something what you put into it, not from your expectations or perceptions of what it should be.

I went to BlogHer having a pretty rough 10 days of insane press (the plus side was i didn’t have to hand out business cards! People knew who I was already). But everyone was really nice to me, I had some great conversations with people I didn’t know, and I came back inspired and full of some new ideas.

It also reminded me that it is important to get back to the basics and that over commercialization of blogs is just as bad as over commercialization in real life. Seeing it in front of me felt like the nail in the coffin. I want community, I want friends, I want to find a true balance in relationships with PR and what we offer here, and I know how I am going to do that now.

If you take your blog seriously, if you want to translate what you do all day or if you are just looking for justification that what you do is valid, find an upcoming meetup and attend to decide if its a right fit for your goals.You may walk away learning about your blog or may walk away learning about yourself.

I am just grateful to be back to my quiet computer chair, my beautiful child, my 4 bratty  furbabies, my supporting husband, and my amazing online community.

I couldn’t ask for much more.

~Trisha