Many of you may remember me writing about attending the Blogher conference last year and meeting other food bloggers. Planning is now getting underway for Blogher 07, which will be in Chicago July 27-28 this year. I'm involved this year as a co-chair of a track called The Art of Life, which will will "be devoted to the passions about which so many of us blog...food, art, photography, crafts, knitting, writing, poetry, music and more."
You did notice the word food in there didn't you? While my specific task doesn't give me control over the food content at Blogher 07, I do get to help screen ideas for sessions and/or presenters for the track of which food will be a part. So naturally, I want to do what I can to help insure there will be a lot of exciting sessions which food bloggers will find interesting.
What's the Blogher conference?
Blogher is a site which features women bloggers, and this year's Blogher Conference will be the third annual conference. However, both the site and conference are not limited to women. Here's the conference agenda, as outlined by Elisa Camahort: "BlogHer's annual event continues to be dedicated to bringing bloggers together, and to celebrate the fact that although there are, in fact, many blogospheres, we can find common ground."
How Can You Help Give Input into the Planning of Blogher 07 or Become a Presenter Yourself?
You did notice the word food in there didn't you? While my specific task doesn't give me control over the food content at Blogher 07, I do get to help screen ideas for sessions and/or presenters for the track of which food will be a part. So naturally, I want to do what I can to help insure there will be a lot of exciting sessions which food bloggers will find interesting.
What's the Blogher conference?
Blogher is a site which features women bloggers, and this year's Blogher Conference will be the third annual conference. However, both the site and conference are not limited to women. Here's the conference agenda, as outlined by Elisa Camahort: "BlogHer's annual event continues to be dedicated to bringing bloggers together, and to celebrate the fact that although there are, in fact, many blogospheres, we can find common ground."
How Can You Help Give Input into the Planning of Blogher 07 or Become a Presenter Yourself?
You have until March 16 to submit ideas about Blogher 07 sessions to the planning committee . Blogher welcomes your ideas whether you're letting us know about a topic you'd love to see covered, someone you would recommend as a presenter, or would be interested in participating as a presenter yourself. Here is the link for full information about how to submit ideas for presenters or propose yourself as a presenter for the Blogher 07 conference.
I'd especially like to encourage anyone who was there last year to get involved to help recommend presenters for the food blogging sessions for this year. (If I didn't have a full time job teaching school in addition to my blog, I'd love to be making the invitation to last year's participants in a more personal way.)
This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.
This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.
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Blogher Conference
10 comments:
Hi Kalyn - it would be nice to have a clear announcement of the dates in this post. The link to the post about the conference doesn't even state the dates clearly. thanks
Hi Sam: The dates are in the first sentence of the post:
"BlogHer '07 is less than six months away, coming to Chicago on July 27/28 this year"
I'm going to go bold that text though, so it stands out a bit more. Thanks for pointing out that it gets buried a bit in the avalanche of info that follows.
Thanks Sam, I added it here so it's even more clear.
I think it's awesome you guys are coming to Chicago! I miss all the conferences on the coasts.
So, let's pretend for a minute that BlogHer really was all and only about food blogging. What sessions would people like to see at the conference?
I for one would like to see:
1) Food Photography Workshop - led by Lara, Keiko, Bea, Heidi
2) Food blogging as an entry into professional food writing. The ins and outs of getting published.
Other ideas?
I guess this just leads me to realise that I want a conference FOR food bloggers, more than a conference ABOUT food blogging.
Somehow sessions on cooking, chefs, restaurants and so on appeal much more to me.
I did have the idea to create such a conference a couple of years ago but I have never had the energy to actually do anything aboutit.
Hi Sam (and others),
So, if the conference were just for food bloggers, what sessions specifically would you find of interest?
Hey Elise...what do you think about staging our own picnic lunch of some sort? The food that was served last year was so sad and disappointing. ;-)
The topics of blogger to pro writer is cool, but that's certainly a topic which could cover many types of bloggers. Maybe it could be broader and cover how blogging has inspired all types of food business opportunities (writing professionally, opening a restaurant, becoming a chef, creating a packaged product, doing consulting, etc).
Speaker ideas...Kelli at Lovescool?
My top picks would definitely be a food photography session, and a panel about recipe writing (improvising and/or creating from scratch, testing, etc), but I also think a 'blog to business' panel would be fun!
Another idea...the politics of food...the ethics of blogging about products, businesses, other peoples recipes, or even just the general politics of talking about food. Some people still consider 'foodie' to be a bad word and 'organic' to be only accessible to those who are wealthy.
Shuna would be a great speaker (having seen her captivate people in both a class setting AND at Blogher 06).
Sam (and Elise) I do think we have a real opportunity to have at least one track of Blogher 07 be highly focused on subjects for food bloggers. I also think that a lot of food bloggers with less blogging experience will be very interested in the general blogging content. For me personally, Blogher 06 was an incredible learning experience.
Kat, I am definitely hoping to have some input into the food, but the idea of a lunch sounds fun. Elise, Alanna, and I have talked about possibly organizing a "food blogger dinner" one of the nights too.
I like the idea of a session on food blogger to food business opportunities. I'd also love to see a session on recipe development. And food photography is probably my #1 session preference. If you (or anyone reading this) have speaker ideas like the people you've mentioned or others in any of those topic areas, please encourage them to follow the links in this post and submit their name to Elisa. It doesn't need to be a formal proposal, just a description of what the topic might be and their contribution and background in that subject.
Thanks for the input!
These all sound like great ideas. I missed last year but hope to attend this year (I'd be honored to share anything I've learned while blogging - thanks for the recommendation Kat). I have turned my blog into a business, and think it's a very important topic. Some other ideas I was thinking about - social ettiquette when blogging, ethics and rules for reviewing products and a guide for companies who send out products to be reviewed on blogs (I've had some interesting requests!) I'll check out the blogher site now and submit some thoughts...
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