in celebration of BlogHer ’08

Today, blogher’s 2008 party conference begins in San Fran. Officially, this is what it’s about (according to their site):

Featuring technical labs, educational workshops, intense discussion sessions, relevant sponsors, speakers from every corner of the blogosphere, established and new, and plenty of opportunities to network and socialize. Appropriate for anyone and everyone who’s interested in any kind of blogging, from the personal to the professional to the political.

Some heady statistics (according to Katie Couric):

• 36 million women read and/or write blogs
• 46% of mommy blogs are political and/or issue driven
• Women spent $2 trillion last year (ie. we are a powerful market force)

Blogging is a perfect medium for women (according to me):

• We fit it into our lives and schedules when it works for us.
• We have ultimate control over our domain (pun intended).
• We decide who can and can not talk back to us.
• We are a growing community of women who share advice, support and connection on every topic from breast cancer to how to build a website to parenting tips to career coaching to fertility, infertility and miscarriages to fashion to…
• We are no longer isolated from each other and the world.
• We are creative, daring, inventive and take risks with ourselves and our careers.
• We are financially independent.
• We are rewarded for being our real selves by site traffic, sales, revenue streams and peer acknowledgment.
• We are able to combine family and work, or at least make the ‘have to choose’ scenario a bit fuzzier.
• We buy products and services from each other circumventing big business that don’t incorporate our voice, needs or wants.
• We have a voice.
• We’re powerful.

Back to blogher ’08: I’m insanely jealous, wish I was there and pray that next year blogher ’09 will be on the east coast. For those of you lucky enough to attend…have a fabulous time…I can’t wait to read all about it.