St. Louisans Represent at BlogHer ‘08

At this year’s BlogHer conference in San Francisco, over 1,000 bloggers from across the country gathered to celebrate and discuss the role of women in social media. Several local bloggers made the trip to California to participate and make their voices heard. And two prominent St. Louis bloggers took the spotlight as panelists, sharing their experiences as successful women writers.

The Guild’s own Dana Loesch from Mamalogues moderated a panel titled What We Do: There’s More to Monetization than Advertising, where she and a group of blogging pros discussed the innovative ways successful bloggers are finding to earn income doing the work they love.

And Shark-Fu from Angry Black Bitch and Shakesville participated in the discussion What We Believe: How To Take Names and Be Taken Seriously as a Political Blogger, about establishing credibility, an audience and a personal voice in the world of political blogging.

Both panels drew large audiences. BlogHer volunteers liveblogged the sessions, and you can find firsthand accounts of Dana’s session here and of Shark-Fu’s session here.

Other St. Louis bloggers who attended the event include Bri from Under the Arch, Kristie from Slacker-Moms-R-Us and Lipstick to Crayons, and Jaelithe from The State of Discontent and MOMocrats.

Are you a St. Louis blogger who attended BlogHer? Did you see one of our hometown panelists speak? Let us know in the comments what you thought of the event, and of our St. Louisan BlogHer speakers!

This post submitted by Guild Member Jaelithe, who writes at The State of Discontent.

Guild Member Profile - Five Minutes with Kim

Spend a few minutes with Kim Dorsey and you can’t help but notice her engaging personality, warm smile and easy confidence. The author of Parachuting Without a Net and Jessica and Kelli – A Celebration of Two lives, began blogging in May of 2007 during her lunch hours at work. At that point, she kept the blog private, using it as an outlet to express her feelings about daily life

But when her eldest daughters, Jessica and Kelli, were fatally injured in an accident last year, she quit blogging for a short time.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. I finally posted ‘I Have No Words’, and then I commented on Mamalogues in response to a post she put out about what we wanted for Christmas, and I said I wanted my girls back.  I had a really bad day and I just typed it without really thinking what might happen.  I got so many hits from that comment, and it inspired me to keep talking about my kids, all of them,” she says. 

As Kim continues to blog, a story of heartbreak and loss is evolving into one of healing and hope — she’s been able to promote a fund-raiser in memory of Jessica and Kelli and she’s helping other people who have experienced similar tragedies.

How did you come up with your blog name?

It was how I felt at the time, like I was free falling but had no idea how to land.

What has been the most eye-opening experience for you on this blogging journey?

How you feel like you “know” the person you read about.  So, I’m sure that people feel like they “know” me now too. Also, to hear from other readers who have lost children, or lost someone close to them suddenly.  It makes me feel less alone in all this.  I also have had people say “oh, I read your blog,” and I immediately think “Oh, I hope it was a good post today!”

I guess losing your anonymity through blogging is what I’m getting at.

Speaking of anonymity… How do you feel about being “out there.”

So far, it’s been a positive experience.  I do talk about Maddy, I use her name, although some bloggers use pseudonyms for their kids and spouses.  I figure I’m in the public eye because of Jessica and Kelli’s deaths, so the information is already out there.  Some writers get flamed for using real names but I think it’s a personal decision.  It doesn’t change my opinion of the writer. 

What’s the best feedback you’ve gotten so far? 

The best feedback is any feedback.  I love getting comments.  Knock wood, they’ve all been positive (except for one time!)  If I make someone laugh, or think, or go hug their kids, then I’m cool with that. But I’ll be honest, when people say I’m a good writer, that’s my best feedback.  I sometimes struggle with how I’m writing - I try to use spell check and not butcher the rules of grammar, but I know I do.  I write how I talk, so I hope that people who know me can “hear” me through my writing.  I do have flashes of brilliance sometimes, and sometime I post and think “wow, that was pretty sucktastic.” 

Why should bloggers join the Guild? Why did you join?

To meet the people in the local blogging community; to further rights and responsibilities of bloggers; networking and exchange of ideas and opinions; and for the cocktails at the gatherings.

I wanted to make new friends, I’m really excited to be a part of the Guild.  I think we can do some new and exciting things with blogs.  It’s such a new medium that we’re kind of writing the rules as we go along.  I’m looking forward to possibly having a bigger role in the Guild eventually – like the chance to help people understand intellectual property rights.

When you look into your future as a blogger, what do you see?

I’d like to continue blogging, and eventually expand into other areas.  I’m really looking forward to InterPLAY - I’m so technologically challenged. I’m doing the basics right now but there are so many places I could take this blog. If we were to get a law passed for Jessica and Kelli, I could start an informational blog and maybe help others. I could expand their website for more fundraising and information about their scholarships. Heck, Maddy wants to start a blog! The possibilities are endless.

Check out Kim’s favorite blog posts. Here’s one. Don’t forget this one nor this one. (Kim says this one gets an honorable mention.)

This post was written by Lisa, from Midwestern Mommy and Midwestern Mommy Reviews.

What do you want to see in a Web design panel?

We’re about to announce our full lineup of panels (and start announcing speakers) for InterPLAY, the St. Louis interactive portion of PLAY:stl. Check out the new InterPLAY website! During last Saturday’s meeting we agreed that a design panel, separate from a CSS session, was needed.

To make it truly interactive, we’d like to hear from you about what YOU would like to see incorporated into such a panel, and whose expertise we should showcase as a panelist. We have a couple of exciting speakers in mind from top area creative agencies who are interested in participating.

You have the floor - leave your input in the comments!

Sound off! Photo and video censorship

When Maarten Dors posted a photo on Flickr of a steely-gazed ‘tween smoking a cigarette, the Dutch photographer was trying to make a statement about life in Romania. But without notice, Yahoo deleted the photographer’s work. The powers-that-be deemed it inappropriate. The photo “promoted smoking” he was told. Dors was able to convince Yahoo that the photo wasn’t about glamorizing cigarettes. It was simply a glimpse of the poverty on Romania’s streets. The photo was reposted only to be deleted months later by another Yahoo employee.

Dors isn’t alone. A number of parent bloggers have found their photos and videos of their breastfeeding infants removed from sites like Flickr, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube under the guise of “offensive” or “suggestive” subject matter. But last summer, hundreds of parent bloggers organized. Websites like The Maternal League of Justice launched and many a blogger took to their blogs to asking themselves, their readers and the mentioned services, “how could various photo and video hosting sites ban certain images, yet leave other images that were either violent or overtly sexualized?”

This raises the question, “what about free speech?”

Currently, service providers govern and set the rules for users. They cite their guidelines as being created and enforced in order to provide a safe place for the general audience (with a mind’s eye on minors) as well as brand protection. Typically, service providers censor photos based on spamming, copyright infringement or child porn.

But as people like Dors and many others are finding, some cases of what’s deemed “ok” versus “obscene” or “inappropriate” can wildly range based on a gatekeeper’s whim. As we’ve seen with the uproar created last year amongst the parent blogger community, rules aren’t always clear – not only to those using the service but to employees of the service. While some services try to train content-watching employees, enforcement isn’t always consistent and a user can find their photos/videos removed without notice.

“Could it be some pimply faced intern was uncomfortable with a tandem nursing mom but not the thousands of pictures showing more breasts than a chicken farm? And don’t forget that there are over 250 pro-ana (Pro Anorexia) sites on Facebook. But a mom feeding her child is violating the policy?”, writes a blogger from The Maternal League of Justice.

According to the Associated Press and The Washington Times, “The governmental role that companies play online is taking on greater importance as their services - from online hangouts to virtual repositories of photos and video - become more central to public discourse around the world. It’s a fallout of the Internet’s market-driven growth, but possible remedies, including government regulation, can be worse than the symptoms.”

Some people make the argument that if you don’t agree with an enterprise’s censor policies; find a service you do agree with. (Or start your own.) Others think terms of use should be clearer cut and consistently enforced. (An example would be to mention the unwritten rule amongst certain providers to ban images of children smoking.) Many bloggers are also calling for services to improve their appeal processes. But what also puts these services into a tough spot is the fact that the internet is worldwide. Many service providers have had to rework policies in order to accommodate other countries’ demands. (That’s another discussion open for debate!)

What do YOU think about this issue?

This post was written by Lisa. She also writes for Midwestern Mommy and Midwestern Mommy Reviews.

News sources: FirstMonday.org, Spectacle.org, Maternal League of Justice, Washington Post, FastCompany.com

Guild Member Profile: Five Minutes with Andrea

Photo credit: Andrea. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Almost three years ago, St. Louis Bloggers Guild Member Andrea found herself in the midst of a new kind of chaos — parenthood. As many who’ve taken the parental plunge will testify, the experience, as thrilling as it can be, can leave many a mom feeling a bit depleted. What to do when you long for a greater sense of connection? Start blogging!

That’s what Andrea, the author of Little Bald Doctors, did. The community she’s established through her blog’s readership has been a sounding board and a source of support through toddlerhood trials, health scares, and a second pregnancy.

Your blog has a very unique title. What’s the story?

My blog title came from my love of the book Insomnia by Stephen King, aptly enough. The timing of my blog birth coincided with some sleepless nights due to having a small child and also to some of the disjointed feelings I was dealing with because of some depression. There are three characters in that book referred to as little bald doctors from time to time that the main character, a man going through some rough times because of his insomnia, was seeing that he thought he was hallucinating. At the time, I felt off kilter enough to be seeing little bald doctors myself, and so the name of my blog was born. Also, there’s the idea that my kids are little, they started off bald, and maybe some day, they’ll be doctors. I know, it’s a stretch, but hey, it’s catchy. It’s also come full circle again, because I’m back in the insomnia months of parenthood, having given birth in January 2008.

What topics do you typically write about?

Whatever’s on my mind, but mostly my kids, my husband, my family if it’s a benign topic, and my thoughts. Sometimes I try to write about current events, but I find that there are usually others more adept at handling those topics, so I try to keep it light, like a chat with a girlfriend over lunch. I love me some lunch talk.

What topics do you avoid? Why?

Mostly, my extended family and some of the drama involved there, because every large family has drama, right? I choose to blog about my life, and as such, there are people in the periphery of my life that affect me, but they haven’t chosen to have their stories online, so I give them their privacy by staying away from more than a casual mention of our familial goings on. My kids, my husband and what happens under my own roof on a daily basis, that stuff is fair game unless I’m expressly forbidden to discuss it, like my husband’s showering habits — not that they’re negative in any way. But I will not point the microscope at anyone outside my immediate family without permission and even then, I will not do so in a negative way. That’s just an aspect of my life and my dealings with people that will not see the glowing light of a computer screen. I think internet bashing behind someone’s back, when that person doesn’t have their own blog with which to defend themselves or a way to voice their side, is just as bad as a sucker punch from behind. Not cool.

What has been the most eye-opening experience for you blogwise?

That not everyone in the blogosphere is peachy keen and friendly. Sometimes, it feels as if the blogosphere is like high school all over again, with the popular crowd, the stoners, the gamers, the geeks, the joiners (I guess I’d be one of those) and it feels cliquey sometimes. However, it’s good to know that I have grown adept at navigating waters such as those with much more aplomb than I had when I was actually IN high school.

Why should bloggers join the St. Louis Bloggers Guild?

There are a multitude of reasons. If you’re interested in photography, vlogging, podcasting or any number of different ways to present yourself online besides just writing, there are things to learn to protect your content such as watermarking photos, copyrighting content or getting a Creative Commons license and which one applies to your needs. There are technical questions that can be answered. The community-building aspect is priceless and if you’re new to blogging, it’s a great way to meet other area bloggers. It’s also a good way to educate yourself on the perils of online journaling and you can find out things regarding anonymity on the web and protecting yourself from stalkers as well as content thieves before making the mistakes that make such things easier for those kinds of people.

Andrea’s three favorite posts of all time? Here’s one! Here’s a second. And here’s a great one too!

This post was written by Guild Member Lisa, who also writes at Midwestern Mommy.

Presidential Campaigns, Major Parties Reach Out to Bloggers

During the 2008 United States presidential campaign, politicians and political parties have responded to the increasing influence of bloggers like never before. Both the Democratic National Convention Committee and the Republican National Convention Committee have invited bloggers to attend this year’s national party conventions, each offering their own official blogger credentialing process, and accommodations in many ways similar to those traditionally offered to members of the mainstream media.

This is only the second time the two largest political parties in the nation have included bloggers among the press at their presidential conventions, and a far greater number of bloggers are being included at each venue this time around than were in 2004, when the Democratic National Convention Committee offered credentials to just over 30 bloggers, and the Republican National Convention Committee credentialed only 15.

Both the RNCC and the DNCC also now publish their own blogs, featuring convention-related news and information, and inviting visitors to leave comments.

Individual presidential candidates have also made much more of a point of courting bloggers’ attention this time around. Fairly early on in the primary season, many presidential candidates began adding bloggers to their press release email lists. And the Democratic and Republican presumptive nominees have continued to reach out to bloggers since the primaries ended. Both the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign have invited bloggers to conference calls with top campaign officials to discuss policy plans and positions on several key issues including the economy, health care, and national security. The McCain campaign has been particularly assertive in its conference call outreach, often featuring McCain himself on the calls, and inviting unabashedly left-leaning blogs (including, for a time, a political blog this author writes for, MOMocrats.com) to participate in the conference calls alongside conservative bloggers).

Barack Obama has ramped up his appeal to bloggers as well in recent months, for example, granting a video interview to the popular women’s blogging community BlogHer in which he answered several questions submitted by BlogHer’s community of writers and readers. (He also was gracious enough to answer some questions I helped gather from writers and readers on MOMocrats a few months ago.)

Of course, the internet is still an unfamiliar medium for many politicians and campaign staffers. As one might expect given the newness of the effort, the two main political parties’ unprecedented level of interaction bloggers during this election cycle has not proceeded without missteps and controversy.

For example, when the DNCC released its list of credentialed bloggers for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, some liberal bloggers accused the credentialing committee of not doing enough to represent bloggers of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. And conservative bloggers complained that they felt excluded from the list, as well.

The RNCC has yet to release its official list of credentialed bloggers, and there is currently much speculation among political bloggers on all sides about whether the RNCC will follow the DNCC’s partisan lead and credential mostly conservative blogs, or take a different tack and embrace a greater diversity of political views among their credentialed bloggers.

The McCain campaign has also drawn some criticism recently for encouraging supporters to visit targeted liberal blogs such as Daily Kos and leave comments repeating talking points pre-chosen by the McCain campaign and posted on the campaign website. Critics claim this tactic may encourage cut-and-paste trolling instead of meaningful discussion; supporters of the practice maintain it’s a useful component of a successful blog outreach strategy that will empower campaign supporters to get undecided voters access to more information about the candidate.

Have you been contacted by a political campaign recently, or been given the opportunity to participate in a conference call? The St. Louis Bloggers Guild would like to hear from local bloggers who’ve had their own experiences with the the new, more serious approach to interacting with bloggers being tested by the political powers that be. If you have any interesting stories to share about being approached (or snubbed) recently by a political party or politician, please leave a summary or a link in the comments!

This entry posted by Jaelithe, a St. Louis native who writes about politics at MOMocrats.com, and writes about everything else at her personal blog, The State of Discontent.

Good Times

Last weekend I ventured out of “West County” sans husband and children! and headed down to the Atomic Cowboy looking forward to the great atmosphere and company that awaited me.

I just love how “our” area is set up with couches and low tables which makes it feel rather homey and intimate. It was a small group this time, which was actually kind of nice. There was camera talk between Raquita and Stef’s (Cupcake Project) husband, and lots of Twitter talk with Todd Jordon which led to a discussion of the pros and cons of Plurk, with Farrell listening in and still not buying into all the hype. Joel from STL Homeboy made an appearance to his first bloggers gathering, and I filled him in on the benefits of using either google reader or bloglines…..he was still just using his bookmarks! Silly silly boy….It’s all about time management when you are a stay-at-home parent. He has seen the error of his ways!

All in all it was once again a successful get together with great company, good food and drink, and I can’t wait until the next one! I Hope to see more new faces then! Remember, you don’t have to be a member of the guild, so come, hang out and meet the people you have been reading for so long!

 

 

post written and submitted by ABunslife.

For more photos of the gathering, click here and enter STLBLOGGERSJUNE2008 below the slideshow, once loaded.

Guild meeting Saturday, July 12

St. Louis Bloggers Guild meetings are held on the second Saturday of every month. . . so our next meeting is right around the corner!

Next Saturday, July 12, we will be meeting at the Benton Park Cafe at 1p.m. They generously host our meetings and provide us with a discount on food and drinks, so come hungry and thirsty (or just in need of caffeine)!

We will be discussing Guild business, further planning for the Interactive Festival (about which exciting news is soon to come!) and registering new Guild members. Non-members who are interested in joining the Guild are welcome and encouraged to join us; a $5 fee is applied, but can be put toward the cost of dues upon membership.

Please RSVP in the comments or, for Guild members, on the Guild forums!

June Meet-Up

It is time once again for a little gathering of the ducks!

We typically have a good time together and are really looking forward to meeting alot of our new members in person! So come on out and have a great time

Date: June 28th
Time: 6 pm til we get put out
Where: Atomic Cowboy
4140 Manchester Ave
St Louis, MO 63110

It does bear mentioning that Atomic Cowboy does offer our group half price drinks and have increased security with a set of off duty police officers. *Also if babysitters are needed we can have sitters arranged at a near by members home for a fee (teenagers aren’t prone to free manual labor) please feel freee to contact Raquita (raquita at gmail dot com) for more details.

RSVP on this post, and look for a badge to put on your blog on this post this evening… I’ll update this as soon as I get home.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

**UPDATE: Buttons here!!

Name that festival: voting time!

We got your suggestions - thanks for participating! We picked the best from the bunch (or in some cases, the ones currently not in use or similar to something else in the local media) and are ready for voting. Here are your choices:

Epicenter
Interplay
iSaintLouis
STL:interact
STL:interactive

Voting is now closed!