LizaWasHere

BlogHer rocks my socks.

For one thing, those ads over there on the right hand side mean that my blogging habit is paid for. I don’t think I’ll be getting rich, but at least web hosting costs are covered, and I aspire to having my whole Internet connectivity costs covered.

But far more importantly, they are an amazing organization with a deep commitment to empowering a diverse community of women, and helping us to help one another figure out this whole blogging universe, and how we can work and play here.

Earlier this week, I got an email from Elisa Camahort Page, one of the co-founders and the COO of BlogHer. It was addressed to me, to Dana from Mombian, and to Polly from LesbianDad. BlogHer had just put out a call for ideas for their annual conference, to be held in Chicago July 23-25.

In that email, Elisa said:

As I hope you may have noticed, BlogHer is passionate about delivering the most inclusive and diverse experience to our conference-goers that we possibly can, including (and particularly) on our speaking roster. Not only do we look for diverse speakers, but we have a commitment to bring new speakers to BlogHer.

…

[W]e thought you each might be able to help us get the word out to the LGBT community, particularly lesbian moms. I should emphasize that we don’t necessarily want to have speakers to talk about being lesbian moms only, but rather simply to incorporate their voices and perspectives into any panels dealing with parenting blogging in general.

To my mind, that’s the real goal of diversity and inclusion. And kudos to BlogHer for understanding that in spite of our wonderful, historic Presidential election, and the good intentions of many, many, many people, that kind of inclusion doesn’t “just happen.” It requires outreach to many different communities, and thoughtful attention.

And it’s easy to slip up, no matter how feminist, how liberal or progressive, or how well intentioned you are.

For example, back in the day, when I was a young DC lobbyist working for a non-profit Internet civil liberties group, I spent considerable time advocating for certain corporate and non-profit Internet leaders to be appointed to the Children’s Online Protection Act Commission.

At the end of the process, the staffer responsible for making the appointments accepted our top 3 recommendations. After they were announced, she called me back and gave me a dressing down that I will never forget. Congressman Gephardt (her boss) followed our recommendations, but was very unhappy that this coalition of groups put forth 3 white male commissioners, and it had better not happen again.

Doh.

I immediately pictured women who would have been equally great choices from two of the entities, and a Latino from the third.

That’s not going to happen with the speaker panels at BlogHer.

But HOW that’s not going to happen is this: If you know a blogger who you think would be a great speaker or have an interesting perspective on a panel or topic that you think BlogHer should cover, tell them. Here’s how:

Email both me (elisa@blogher.com) and our new full-time Conference Programming Manager Jes Ferris (jes@blogher.com) and tell us the following:

- Who you are and why you want to speak
- Which of our tracks you’d like to participate in, and your experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective about that subject
- Specific links that highlight that experience/expertise/knowledge/perspective
- Your contact information and a link to your blog(s)
- Who else you think should be contributing

Here’s my last shout out for the day about BlogHer — call this fun & frivolous but cool. Last night, I attended an Atlanta BlogHer-GM/Saturn Meetup. They fed us fancy appetizers and desserts and an extremely shi-shi restaurant, and they had 4 cool cars and car experts for us to test drive.

Josie and I took a spin in the not-yet-available-for-sale Saturn VUE with a V6 engine. It has cool “regenerative” breaking technology that use the energy created while breaking to recharge the battery. And lots of other car-people bells and whistles that I don’t remember. I thought it was comfortable and got good gas milage for the size.

Hopefully we’ll be replacing my car sometime next year. If Jill successfully talks me into staying with an SUV, the VUE is on the list. I’m definitely about the hybrid. Or if we have to wait until 2010, maybe about all electric.