Reflections on the Best/Worst of BlogHer08, two weeks later

First up, I have LOTS of pics from BlogHer08, and some that I haven't posted here, because I know there are those of you who either a) didn't go and are just sick about it, or b) went and did some things you really don't want to remember doing.

So, for those of you who are jonesing for some more of BlogHer08, you can find all my pics HERE, courtesy of FLICKR and the new PICNIK editing tool, which is kinda cool (and also showcased at BlogHer08).

Okay, enough of that. Here they are:

The Cool Moms Rule! BlogHer08 Awards

Best Swag:
Zivio Boom bluetooth headset, which I have already raved about.

Incidentally, for those who wrote and want to know how it is holding up in the wind and rain, etc., I'm having a hard time finding out, because I am going to have to sneak it away from the Engineer, who is practically in love with it and may be sleeping with it any day now.

Worst Swag:
Anyone who gave out leaflets and fact sheets *and nothing else*

I appreciate free stuff as much as the next girl, maybe even more, but why come to a conference if all you have to offer is cardboard and rhetoric?

Swag I Am Still Miffed About NOT Getting:
Anything from Apple

They didn't even bother to show at the largest gathering of internet-savvy women this year. No clue why.

Best Speaker:
Stacy Morrison, from Redbookmag.com

She's a successful businesswoman and a blogger herself, and WOW is she inspiring! She's also incredibly open. I thought I would be most impressed with Dooce, who is also kick ass, but it was Stacy who won the day, hands-down.

Worst Speaker:
TIE between Raggs and That blogher who thought she was all that

This big shaggy dog was all over the place, but he had nothing to say. ; )
I don't want to mention names, but when you turn a Q and A session into your own private soap opera, you're going way over the top, girlfriend.

Oh, and to all those BlogHers dressed to the nines throughout the conference: there's a place and a time, ladies. Night club? Fine, go for it. But during a full day of conferences, if I see your skinny butt walking around in 5 inch heels, I'm going to trip you on the stairs, I swear. I saw some of you wearing shorts in 50 degree weather with high winds, too (hint: Victoria's Secret Pink, right next to the Westin St. Francis, had hoodies going for $25).

Biggest Surprise:
No Kyra Sedgwick or Holly Hunter at Ruby Skye

I was skeptical the big stars would show, but with all the build-up and the lights and the music, they sure tried to give the impression that the headliners were pulling up in limos any second now.

Biggest Disappointment:
Westin St. Francis

First off, the food really wasn't that great. Boxed lunches, okay, they were fine, but if I had to look at the pastries and fruit "breakfast" ONE MORE TIME, I would have gone after those Sesame Suite cupcakes come dawn. And I'm just a cereal girl, normally. (Cause we are living in a cereal world...) I mean, really, this is a swanky hotel, and they couldn't spring for the occasional scrambled eggs in a warmer?

Add to that the lack of power strips and extension cords in any of the conference rooms and the dim hotel room lighting (we didn't mind that so much, since we did have a great view of Union Square, but I heard other bloghers complaining), and you can see why this year's event, for all that it was in a "nice" hotel, felt a little claustrophobic.

Best Out-of-Hotel Adventure:
The Photowalk

We actually ended up splitting off from the Shutter Sisters, who didn't have much of an agenda anyway, and doing our own thing. Note to walkers: Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill is uphill all the frickin' way. And we are talking some STEEP hills. My legs still hurt the next day. But it was worth it for the views (even if I did grumble about the climb the whole time to the annoyingly-fit Engineer).

Bloggers Who Just Want To Have Fun Award:
SoCal Moms.

Every time I saw them, they seemed to be having fun. From girly-girl makeovers at Sak's Fifth Avenue to the cool swag bags I saw them carrying around, they took BlogHer08 by storm.

Trying too Hard Award:
BlogHer Party Girls (who don't know when to stop)

Yes, I know we all partied. I'm only looking at those ladies (and you know who you are) who had so much to drink they made the rest of us look bad: It is NOT cool to get in trouble with hotel security and get us all cut off at the Macy's party because you keep spilling your complimentary cocktails, mmmkay? Come on, ladies, let's show a little maturity.

Best California Souvenir:
The In-and-Out T-Shirt I bought the Rhino

I was surprisingly impressed by the In-and-Out burger franchise while in CA. They cut their french-fried potatoes right there, fresh as can be, they're clean and fast, they use high-quality products and they get your order right.

Worst California Souvenir:
Serious West-Coast Jet Lag

I still can't get up early in the morning. Sorry, kids. Thank goodness school doesn't start for two weeks.

Hey, we're famous!

Hubby and I met some great folks from Search Marketing Gurus at BlogHer08, and they even put a pic of us in their report on the conference!

They were great fun, and we all had some wine together at Saturday night's Macy's party (even though we were supposed to be cut off, because *some bloggers* spilled wine in Macy's! But it wasn't us, I swear).

Friday Night at BlogHer08: Ruby Sky

I'm Old. Old, old, old. Friday night's party at BlogHer08 was at this awesome, obviously happening nightclub, just chock-full of atmosphere and ambience, Ruby Skye. And rumor was that some celebrities from TNT's new season might show up, as TNT and Greenology sponsored this event.

And the drinks were good and the food was fine, but the music was loud and the crowd was thick so the Engineer and I (he, by the way, is doing a stellar job in the "supportive spouse" role) found a seat on a comfy sofa with FiveMoms. And most of the night, we stuck to that sofa like glue, because otherwise we would have lost it to these prowling vultures that were eyeing it lustfully, just waiting for their chance to snipe it. You can't trust those BlogHers for a minute. ; )

So, a celebrity showed up, in the form of Gina Rivera from the Closer, the only other woman on the show in a major role besides headliner Kyra Sedgwick. Rivera seemed cool, but for at least an hour prior to her five-minute, "Hello, BlogHer!" rockstar-style greeting, the lights would start dancing over the walls suggestively, then the music would change, becoming more intense, and louder, building up to a crescendo and then and then and then OMG...everything would die down. This happened again and again, for anti-climax after anti-climax, so that by the time Gina Rivera came on the stage, she could have been Brad Pitt on his knees and I would have been like, "Yeah, whatever."

And this is why am I old, because I'm such a jaded, cynical bitch, aren't I? Not to mention--we didn't even make it through the entire night, but cut out early, because after a full day of sessions, a makeover, and an evening of cocktails and conversation, I was ready to call it a day.

Old, old, old.

Geez. If I keep going like this, I'll have a bench picked out in the mall with all the Slver Sneaker crowd in no time!

So-So Friday Saved by Swag

Friday at BlogHer 08 held few surprises for me. I was actually disappointed in some of the sessions. For instance, I had expected to get more practical, hands-on tips from a session on social networking. Instead the panel was pretty much telling me to do what I already did, and they even seemed behind the curve. Honestly, who doesn't use FriendFeed these days? And we all know about Twitter, right? And why, for heaven's sake, are you guys still pushing Technorati? How is Technorati relevant to Moms, even tech-savvy Moms, unless they live and breathe tech 100% of the day? I love me my gadgets, but Technorati fell off of my list of must-reads a long time ago.

I found myself skipping some of the afternoon sessions and heading out to do some shopping, and judging from the crowds of women I saw streaming out of the hotel into the streets, I wasn't alone. And, as it happens, the lovely cosmetic artists in Saks Fifth Avenue took me in hand and treated me to a makeover that left me feeling refreshed and ready for Friday's cocktail party.

One of the highlights of Friday, though, was schlepping around the hotel and chatting with other bloggers, meeting sponsors and hearing about their new products and why they had come to BlogHer 08. I'm still annoyed with Apple for NOT being in that group, for ignoring the biggest gathering of women bloggers completely, as if we didn't matter. I even wrote to them about it, and I'll be really interested to see if I get a reply from Katie Cotton over at Apple.

But I digress.

I was talking about the great bloggers, and the sponsors at BlogHer08.

Which brings me to the swag.

The. Single. Best. Swag. of Friday? The Zivio Boom, from Joby.

Joby, if you hadn't heard of them, are the people responsible for this cool Gorillapod, a tripod you can turn every which way to hold your camera in the perfect position for taking family photos and the like.

But the Zivio Boom is a new Bluetooth headset, and Joby were letting us beta test it at BlogHer08.

The Boom won't be on the market until later this summer, but the Joby Zivio guys were out there fitting bloggers for it for the beta test. And when I say FITTING, I mean it, because this headset has the most custom fitting set-up I have ever seen. The incredibly patient Zivio guy had to deal with enormous crowds, and at least one really rude blogger who tried to cut in line and wanted him to "just give her one" so she could run off to a meeting that ALL OF US WERE ATTENDING, and who had no respect for the product at all, but was in some kind of free stuff relay race where the first one back to the hotel room won or something. But he talked with each blogger individually for the longest time, explaining very sincerely and passionately the reasons they came out with this headset, chief among them that the designer of the headset had so much trouble with other Bluetooth headsets out there fitting correctly that he got fed up and made his own. So this headset comes with six different ear designs, three each of the typical "mushroom" in-ear kind in assorted sizes, and three "scoop" designs which don't push so far into the ear.

I think you are with me in appreciating how awesome this product could potentially be, just from that one feature, especially if, like me, headsets usually just fall right out of your ears. I must have freakishly loose ears or something, which is just disturbing on way too many levels to contemplate. But the Zivio Boom has other things going for it as well, like a neat extendable mic that really works when the wind is blowing instead of making it sound like you are in a hurricane when you call someone on your cell phone. And it's all sleek and sexy and small, so you feel like someone in a sci-fi movie when you put one on.

Party Hopping at BlogHer 08: Part 2

On the Alltop/Kirtsy party shuttle bus.

We boarded the shuttle to Guy Kawasaki's place for the Alltop/Kirtsy party the moment we walked out of Caruso's.

It was a typical SF night Thursday--meaning we were all either wearing jackets or shivering in the cold--but the shuttle was so hot inside the windows fogged over, and we could no longer see the graffiti on the walls of the buildings outside.
I was looking forward to meeting Guy, whose tweets I always enjoy, but it was so packed at his place I never even ran into him! His home is beautiful, though, and food and wine flowed freely in the yard behind his house out in exclusive Atherton. We had a great conversation with the YouData guys. Then it was back on the bus for the trip back to the hotel and two more parties: the Newbie mixer and the People's Party. We were only able to stay a while at each, but I lost count of how many business cards I passed out in that time!