There has been plenty of discussion the past few days about BlogHer. As a veteran of the past three BlogHer conferences it’s interesting to map the trends over time.

Rohit points out that it’s more than moms and that’s always been the case. I often tell the story about the final general session in ‘06 when a women stood up and literally declared, “I’m not a mommy blogger, so quit calling me one, who is with me?” and half the hands in the room went up. Perhaps then all those brands courting mommy-bloggers realized they may have been alienating half the audience.

Granted, moms are a big part of the conference, but one of the big discussion points in one of the sessions is that there are varying definitions for mom: married, single, working, stay-at-home, etc. But even within those broad segments there are further subdivisions. The end result? You can’t generalize or assume, you need to learn who they are, almost on an individual basis.

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There are “5 blogging moms, 7 days without kids, 1 car without car seats, and 2000 miles to drive.” And it all leads to BlogHer 2008 in San Francisco. 
 
The Silicon Valley Moms Group has kicked-off its first Road Trip from the East Coast to the West Coast… and they’ll be blogging along the way.  There is a tricked-out Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, lots of Weight Watchers snacks, cool tunes, and no kids asking “are were there yet?”
 
Some experts are calling it “smart marketing” and others are just excited to be voyeurs.  The coolest part is that Katie Couric — longtimesupporter of Silicon Valley Moms Group — has posted a kick off video!  (Sweet shoes!)
 
Follow the moms on Twitter (MomRoadTrip), contact them via email (momroadtrip@yahoo.com) or read about the adventures on theblog.  Better yet, keep your eyes peeled if you happen to live on the travel route of DC, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, Reno, Silicon Valley and (finally) San Francisco.  
 
Good luck, Moms!  See you at BlogHer 08! 

Recently, we blogged about some new trends in social media PR—namely Stowe Boyd’s call for pitches via Twitter and Marshall’s request for an OPML from PR firms. We blogged about those items because they are areas where much of the PR world is afraid to tread, and exactly where Voce wants to be. I was talking about some of this with Ross Mayfield of Socialtext fame. He had some great insights from both a PR client perspective and as an innovative software vendor in the very space causing these new disruptions.

I think what he said would be of interest to some of our other clients as well as to other PR professionals. There is some good fodder in here for further discussions about:

- What is the big shift in PR and why are people split about whether or not to be happy about it?
- What is the role of a modern PR firm?
- Tactically speaking, how has the PR process changed?

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Cash Warren, Hammer, Quincy Jones III and Baron Davis all have something in common. They sit courtside at a Lakers game? No way, if you keep up with NBA moves, Davis plays for the Clippers! They are all collaborating together for a new album? That’s not it either — Please, Hammer, don’t hurt ‘em!

Actually, this crew and other “who’s who” from Tinsel Town to Silicon Valley were spotted at this week’s Summit at Stanford presented by Voce client, AlwaysOn, here in Palo Alto, California. At first, it can seem out of place to see such a group of celebrities at a mostly-tech-type conference, but by simply taking a closer look under the hood… it all makes sense. Let me explain:

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Great question and I ask myself that a lot. I think a lot of people have their own tricks about how to be successful when architecting a global program but I don’t think any global marketer feels they have all the answers. In particular, I think a lot of us are on a never-ending search to get more and more return on investment from international marketing—METRICS—but also in general more feedback from regions about what really works and what does not work.

I don’t have any snappy answers to share, but I did read in DMNews that the topic will be high on their list to cover in upcoming issues and figured others might want to take a look, or even contribute ideas. They published a blog post asking for comments and perspective.

Let’s see what our peers say!

I attended Blogher for the first time this year. We have a client, Predictify, that is working with the MOMocrats and so off I went from Idaho to San Francisco for Blogher08. First, let’s preface this with the fact that I had some ideas in my mind – based on the agenda and obvious target audience – about what it would be like, but I really had an open mind with regards to what it was truly all about.

What I got was far more than I could have anticipated. Here are some observations from the newbie.

Many conference panels are more about listening than talking. That was absolutely not the case at Blogher. Even the way the rooms were set up for those sessions I attended advocated equal communications between session leaders and participants.

And there was a lot of talking in the sessions. I’m not talking about discussions of poopy diapers, cute shoes and favorite moisturizers (I heard all those conversations at breakfast and lunch). REAL dialogue about issues that matter to many women. Not every woman, but I would say that everything discussed touches the life of every woman in some way or another.

Meeting smart, motivated and independent thinking women was a – no, THE – highlight for me. I’ve got plenty of those type of women around me at work and in my personal life, but put ~1,000 of them in a room and we’re talking a whole new dimension. I met some brilliant women with stories I don’t think I’ll ever forget, and do not want to. Like BernThis, InsideBeauty, WhiteTrashMom, Semi-Charmed Wife, WomenandHollywood, MommyNeedsaCocktail and sooo many more.

There aren’t a ton of men at Blogher but I was happy that I did see a handful, and there was at least one Bloghim in every session I attended but one. I found great value in the men that were there, in person, like our own Josh Hallett who has attended the last three events, or from afar like Guy Kawasaki. There is much debate over men at Blogher and I am in the camp that believes if you want to work within the market that reaches out to moms – bloggers or not – you should attend Blogher. I can’t imagine getting that kind of insight anywhere else.

If you’re interested in blogging or networking and want the opportunity to “work it”, as Tyra might say, with incredibly bright and forward-thinking women then Blogher is worth its weight in gold. I hope to be at Blogher09. Come find me.

I have been to many trade shows over the years, from the glitzy (CES) to the dorky (WinHEC) to the niche (Webmaster World). I have managed booth-duty, staffed press briefings, and tracked down press and analysts on-the-fly. And at each of these shows, I typically avoided the lame-ass schwag bags handed out to attendees.

But then, I attended my fourth BlogHer, which I now refer to the Shangri-La of Schwag. Quite honestly, no other show compares when it comes to sponsors handing out goodies, offering samples and trials, and tugging at heartstrings. Here are my highlights from last week’s BlogHer 08 in San Francisco:

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Great News from Our UK Team!

Hats off to our ION UK team for scoring Cisco work across the UK and Ireland — read all about it in PRWeek, enough said—well done team!

BlogHer 08 has come to a close. Here are some photo highlights. The entire set is here.

A while back Manuel sent around an internal email asking what everyone thought about Newsvetter. At the time, my head was filled with thoughts about PR spam. So, when I looked at the service by following the link in Manuel’s email, I thought it was a service designed to combat PR spam. I promptly tweeted a question that popped into my head. Andrew Fowler, Newsvetter’s creator, saw that tweet and reached out to me. We set up a phone call to discuss the service, and I learned that I missed the boat entirely. Newsvetter does have a PR spam fighting quality, but that’s more like a cool side effect than it’s focus.

What is Newsvetter and how does it work?

Newsvetter is a service enables story pitchers to submit ideas to the media through a structured process. The structure was based on some research Andrew did with media to determine what are the common criteria for evaluating a story. Media, and media only, can then comment on and rate the ideas as a vetting process in a closed environment that essentially works as a backchannel (visible to the pitchers).

While the service does connect people, the truth is that the service doesn’t need to have a ton of members to be useful. PR professionals can use the story brief form as a template for writing pitches, which is made from the common criteria Andrew surfaced from interviewing the media. Journalists and bloggers can require people pitch them through the service to guarantee that their required questions are answered and to solicit opinions from other media contacts. Naturally, as the service expands networking and reputation can play a larger role. PR firms may one day point to their Newsvetter rating, which is based on their percentage of stories that are picked up, as validation during their new business pitches.

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