Don’t be afraid when I tell you that 2,400 attendees (almost all of whom were women) converged on the Big Apple this summer for the annual conference that is a mixture of networking, writing, branding and relationship-building.  While I say this combination sets it apart from other blogging conferences, some have suggested that BlogHer isn’t really about blogging because there were no sessions about about building a brand, how to blog for a living, or tech demonstrations.  I’m not sure what conference sessions they sat in on, but that’s just plain wrong.  Sure, lots of people spend time putting the “social” into social media, but there was plenty of meaty advice on those topics and much more.

Maybe erroneous characterizations like that are one reason that women in social media don’t get much attention from corporate, political or media power brokers.  If they think that women, especially the now notorious “mom bloggers,” are only interested in using their new-found power positions to get free cupcakes or detergent, it’s no wonder they pass us by.  I hope the few who did take time out to meet with some of BlogHer’s attendees will spread the word to others — we’re here, we’re interested and we’re paying attention to substantially more than swag and giveaways.

I was interested that three high-level Pepsi executives, who happened to be women, wanted to reach out to a small group of women bloggers.  The invited us to what they called a “Sofa Summit,” which sounded intriguing, but fell short of my expectations by missing the mark on the all-important “social” aspect of social media.  Instead of choosing to have a conversation with us directly, Pepsi (one of the main BlogHer sponsors) hired former news person Campbell Brown to act as a buffer  — for most of the time, she asked the questions and then moderated a few of our remarks, which left virtually no time in the hour-long session for those of us who wanted to hear about how a soft drink brand was going to reach out through the blogiverse the promote attempts to support women globally. These executives said they were bloggers just like us because they write for their official Pepsi blogs, but they still seemed at a loss about how a real conversation with women influencers should go.  Having the “Sofa Summit” was a good first step, but it still ended up being more of a sales pitch than a give and take.  And in the world of women and social media, that’s not such a good combination.

Politicians are also still feeling their way in what they view as the strange universe of women online, though a few are picking up on why it’s important.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s team does a good job of outreach generally, and so they convinced the Senator that it was important to make time in her schedule not only to hang out at the conference gala, but also to spend about 45 minutes with the women political bloggers in attendance.  Yes, you skeptics (I’m talking to you Politico), there are actually women aside from Arianna Huffington and Jane Hamsher who write about politics, even though you like to look through us or past us!  The downside to 45 minutes is you can’t have a real conversation, because we’re all jockeying to get our questions in – ones that will bring real answers, rather than talking points.  I have to hand it to Senator Gillibrand and her team, though, because I didn’t see any other politicians making their way to engage with influential online women.  Can you say ‘passed up a chance to earn some votes the easy way?’

And then there was CNN, which took an actual social approach to connecting with women at a social media conference. There was no official CNN event.  There was no particular ‘get to know CNN’ agenda.  There were no talking points and there was no “become a CNN evangelist” hard sell.  A couple of producers who were familiar with some of our work wanted to get to know us, put faces with blog names and just have relaxed conversations.  That’s called building relationships and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s what social media is all about.   Who knows where connections lead when they’re made in an organic and real way?  But one thing is indisputable – as with most people, if I feel that someone reaching out to me is really interested in what I’m doing, I’m more likely to be interested in their goals.  If you’re trying to sell me something – whether it’s a product or talking points that you hope I will repeat — I’m more likely to listen to you if you’ve thought about how you can help me, as well.

Having said all that, I admit that those who are trying to find their way in what seems to some like a scary new social media world, are getting better at it each year.  More are learning, in the wise words of  David Wescott, that It’s Not a Lecture.

The funny thing is this –  it just doesn’t seem that hard to understand that personal relationship building and mutual respect are going to get you further than those old Mad Men marketing theories.  In parenting, our kids know when we’re just talking at them and not really hearing or understanding them.  We get the best results with discipline if we make time to know and understand our kids as people.  Sure there’s a power hierarchy and as parents, we have the last say.  But as the mother of feisty ten-year-old daughter, I know full well that my edicts get listened to a whole lot faster if she feels like I’ve really listened to her and have her interests at heart, just as much as those of the family.

The same lessons apply with social media.  It’s not a one-way street, so the sooner those who are lost find the next turn lane, the sooner they can be cruising along the social media highway with amazing benefits for everyone involved.

If you’re attending, I hope you’ll join me for my panel on Saturday morning, Radical Mom Blogging: You’d Be Crazy Not to Take These Women Seriously!

My co-panelists are Annie from PhD in Parenting and Stephanie Roberts of Shutter Sisters fame and the Picture Hope project!

We’ll be talking about how our motherhood experiences have turned us all “radical” in our writing, our blogging and our approach to life, and how we’ve tried to use that radical side to help make positive change in the world!

Come on!  Bring rcoffee and danish!  We’ll have fun!

I’m sure I’ll have a lot to share after returning from the Netroots Nation convention/conference for progressive politicos and bloggers.  But in the meantime, as I’m winging my way from the heat of Las Vegas back to the heat of the nation’s capital, here are a few great posts from some Mothers of Intention that deserve your time and attention:

My friend Corina from Down to Earth Mama is fired up about some significant changes happening in her area’s schools.  As a former teacher, she has an insight you don’t want to miss about Fighting Repeal of Diversity.

My fellow MOMocrat Melissa fires back at the latest craziness at FOX News.  Apparently it’s not okay with them to teach your young children the anatomically correct names for their body parts.

Ariana Kelly who is running for the state House of Delegates in Maryland wonders whether she just walked into the men’s locker room.

Change.org has a disturbing piece on the forced sterilization of Uzbek women.

And while not written by a woman, here’s just one of the many pieces on Shirley Sherrod. Don’t even GET me started on how the White House and Democrats keep falling for the FOX News ‘we’re only telling part of the story’ routine.

And if that’s not enough, check out all the finalists for BlogHer’s “Voices of the Year” award!  And, yes, I am exceedingly honored to have been nominated for one of my posts about how new media moms are treated by some of the mainstream media. The cool thing about this honor is that, as happened at Mom 2.0 Summit, a piece of art has been commissioned for each finalist’s essay!  They’ll be auctioned off for Gulf Coast relief.  If that isn’t a lot of mom power for a good cause, I don’t know what is!

The media have decided the real story was all about Michelle’s pricey shoes, not that she managed to get over 100 Congressional spouses to give their time to work at a food bank. Wearing something other than plain vanilla shoes while working at the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., according to so many news reports, suggested that there was hypocrisy at work — that it couldn’t be possible to do charitable work AND have on some snazzy attire at the same time.

The shoes got all the press while the fact that the First Lady of the United States, along with other politically connected wives were spending their day getting food ready for the hungry ended up as little more than a blip in the news cycle. I had to wonder, how did that tidbit of goodwill get buried under the fashion footwear story? And why?

The media have become obsessed with the fashion of Michelle Obama and now they have begun to use it as a way to critique her as a person, regardless of what she’s trying to bring attention to. In retrospect, I’m sure that Michelle is sad that she didn’t wear some ratty old pair of gym shoes to the food bank, though there is no doubt in my mind that Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan would have seen fit to skewer her for that as a fashion faux pas, as well.

Even the White House pool reports are chock full of questionable fashion details, including the report for this week’s event for Corporate Voices for Working Families:

FLOTUS wore a short-sleeved, floral-patterned blouse of red, purple, pink, peach and yellow with thick black trim around the shoulders and the edges of the sleeves. Underneath, she had on a soft purple camisole. The blouse was held closed by a six-inch light brown belt with gold studs. She wore black pants and black shoes. Information on designers was not immediately available.

Well, that’s too bad that information was “not immediately available,” because I know there are some of you who won’t sleep tonight if we don’t know whether Michelle Obama was wearing J. Crew or Isaac Mizrahi!

But really, isn’t it time to stop focusing on Michelle Obama’s fashions and spend a little more time looking at what she is doing to help the homeless and the hungry? Or have we all become a nation where Us Weekly and People magazines trump the news of actual works to help those in need?

He’s had his final news conference, where it became clear that maybe he really was out of touch for his two terms in the White House. And I have to agree with Campbell Brown on this one — we both thought his comments about his presidency during that news conference were out of touch with reality and revisionist big time (to borrow a phrase from Dick Cheney).

Thursday night, George Bush got around to his final (really, really) talk to the nation in his official capacity. It wasn’t much, barely 15 minutes to take another pass at instilling his version of his presidency on our collective memories. I hate to break it to him, but my even in my ‘old age,’ my memory is better than that.

As Arianna Huffington told Rachel Maddow following the speech, George Bush is still “delusional” about his accomplishments, or lack thereof, after all these years:

The speech was spin at its most dangerous. It’s easy to feel a pang of pity for a guy who was on top so long and is now heading out the door. But the more sympathy he evokes, the more susceptible we are to the lies he is telling. Before we know it, his revisionism becomes accepted as the truth.

So if there was any value in the speech it was this: it should remind us of the importance of refusing to allow this delusional revisionism to stand.

I was genuinely shocked by what he said in those few minutes, but I’m not sure why I continue to be. What would make me think that all of a sudden he would realize that maybe he ought to apologize to the nation? Maybe ‘fess up that he made some mistakes? I suppose when you’re a president whose world view is so narrow and simplistic, it’s easy to think you’ve done a great job and nearly impossible to acknowledge that your actions were anything other than pure.

He told America that he made the hard decisions and always had our best interests at heart. He showed us the face of man who seems untroubled by the fact that on his watch we have become entangled in two foreign wars, have fallen into an economic pit so deep that many think it will be years, not months, before we find our way out, have seen our Constitutional protections diluted and have watched as his administration cavalierly trampled on women’s rights, including equal pay and reproductive rights.

And those are only a handful of the things he’s done to the nation that the Barack Obama administration is going to have to undo. If you believe that’s how our nation should be, then I suppose a laurel and hearty handshake are in order.

Not surprisingly, Bush still claims we are safer than we were eight years ago, thanks to the efforts of his administration to keep terror at bay. Really? Mr. PunditMom reminded me of the story of a man standing on the corner, waving his arms and hands about his head. When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I’m keeping the elephants away.” The questioner shockingly replied, “But there are no elephants.” The hand-waving man responded, “See. It’s working.”

I hear the Bush’s personal belongings are pretty much packed and ready to go at precisely 12:01 p.m. on January 20. President Bush, don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out. And please don’t spend any more time patting yourself on the back for the job you’ve done. I had hoped you would just be a place-holder president and not do much damage when you were (sort of) elected in 2000.

Maybe I’ll wake up and it will all have been a bad dream. And, Mr. President, watch out for those elephants on the way out.

Cross-posted from BlogHer, where PunditMom is a Contributing Editor for News & Politics.

One of those is a real energy plan. Energy and the environment aren’t getting the most play in the media right now, what with one financial crisis after another. I’m pretty sure that poor Charles Ponzi is turning over in his grave at the moment.

But President-elect Obama has a plan that I hope will move us in a better direction toward protecting the environment and making our country a little more “green.” According to Obama’s transition website, he wants to:

Create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future,

Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined,

Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars — cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon — on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America,

Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025, and

Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Plenty of “green” bloggers are talking about whether this plan can work, but many seem happy with the appointment of Carol Browner and others to oversee the plan that the president-elect has proposed. But turning the country around in terms of environmentalism will take more than good people with good ideas.

Diane MacEachern at Big Green Purse blog ponders what our country would look like with just a philosophical change — instead of playing catch-up and trying to fix what we’ve polluted after we’ve polluted, she says we should focus more on prevention:

We’re trying to catch up on shutting down toxic waste sites. Catch up on eliminating dangerous chemicals from our personal care products. Catch up on – and this is a really big one – removing all the climate-changing carbon dioxide we’re emitting into the atmosphere.

It’s a frustrating game, since we never really manage to get caught up. America’s environmental legislators and regulators are mostly focused on clean up – trying to solve a problem after it’s occurred. No one, it seems, remembers the sensible adage, “First, do no harm.”

So… what would happen if the game changed? What transformations could occur if, instead of focusing on cleaning up problems after the fact, we made it a priority to prevent them in the first place?

Preserving and saving our environment extends beyond just the Environmental Protection Agency, though. The Department of Agriculture has a role and with former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack slated to take over at Agriculture in January, Kelly Leahy at Green Daily blog says she’s not so thrilled about what that’s going to mean for the environment:

I was rather disappointed … to hear that Obama chose … Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture. After all of the lip service that Obama paid to the small farmer and changing the industry, he chooses someone with a long history of supporting bio-tech industries and biofuels.

Why is that an issue for the environment? Many believe that corn-based fuels actually harm the atmosphere because there isn’t much reduction in greenhouse gases. So it’s hard to know whether Vilsack, as Secretary of Agriculture, will back away from his support of corn-based ethanol in favor of other more environmentally friendly ideas.

And speaking of cleaner air, Jenn at The Green Parent is wondering what’s going to happen to make the air inside our kids’ schools better:

…I was pretty disturbed to see this report that just came out from USA Today that took a look at the amount of air pollution that can be found around our children’s schools. The report, entitled The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools, compared industrial pollution information collected by the Environmental Protection Agency with the location of the nation’s 128,000 schools to determine which schools had the highest exposure to toxic air pollutants.

There’s no question there is a lot on Barack Obama’s plate the moment he steps into the Oval Office on January 20. Let’s hope that the overwhelming magnitude of fixing the economy doesn’t eclipse making our planet a little bit cleaner.

Cross-posted from BlogHer where PunditMom is a Politics & News Contributing Editor.

Clinton’s name will be placed into nomination in a gesture by Obama to honor her historic race as the “first viable woman presidential candidate” in American history. After that speech, even with her high level status as Senator and former First Lady, Hillary will fade into the political background — at least for a while.

So what should Clinton say in the 40 or so minutes allotted for her 2008 swan song? There’s no getting around the fact that she’ll have to say something about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. But Tuesday night is an opportunity Hillary shouldn’t waste. It’s a chance to make a new start on the political stage. A chance to re-frame herself (again) in who she wants to be going forward as a doyenne of the Democratic party.

Dailypatricia “tweeted” that she hopes Hillary will talk about what it was like personally for her, as a woman, to run for president, saying “girls like me” want to hear about that. Even girls like my eight-year-old daughter understand the powerful moment Hillary presented about what they truly can be as adults.

But BlogHer’s Morra Aarons-Mele, writing at The Guardian, is holding her breath for fear that Hillary will try to morph from the candidate whose campaign focused on white, working-class voters to one that was mainly about her gender:

[W]hile it’s a good thing that language about sexism has made it into the Democratic arty platform, if Clinton uses her moment in the sun to thank the millions of American women who helped her get here, I’m going to throw something at the TV.

Chloe Kamarck at Men’s Daily Vogue blog points out the need for Hillary to address a significant anniversary in her convention address:

[S]ince it’s scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of women’s suffrage, you can expect her to hit hard on the women’s empowerment message, thus further riling up her supporters.

But Hillary Clinton won’t be the only woman on stage at the convention on Tuesday to bolster the empowerment argument. Lilly Ledbetter will be speaking, as well. In case you’ve forgotten, Ledbetter lost a Supreme Court battle this year over pay discrimination.

The Supreme Court decided Lily hadn’t found out about the pay discrimination soon enough and it would have been unfair to her employer, Goodyear, to be responsible for years of pay discrimination that Ledbetter hadn’t known about. So if women’s empowerment is a theme that Clinton touches on, I hope she spends some time shaming her fellow lawmakers into passing the Lily Ledbetter Act (we know McCain won’t), which would keep that from happening to other women, and men, notwithstanding what the Supreme Court said.

Or Hillary could choose to go the “women’s rights are human rights” route, that she talked about 13 years ago in China:

There are some who wonder whether the lives of women and girls matter to economic and political progress around the globe. What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have the chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish.

…

And when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish.

Cross-posted from BlogHer, where PunditMom is a Contributing Editor for Politics & News.

Hillary Clinton is poking her toe back into the political waters, now that she’s taken sometime off to get her head around the fact that she will not be moving back into the White House in January. Seeing Hillary in the news is a good thing. I know there are lots of you who disagree, but as Maureen McGovern once sang, there’s got to be a morning after. And for me, that means making sure we all acknowledge and focus on how momentous this political race has been and where we, as women, go from here.

First, the convention. Should Hillary’s supporters make sure that there is a way to put her name up for a floor vote at the convention as a sign of respect, as was common in the “olden days?”

Regardless of whether this symbolic show of support takes place, others are going to be in Denver to keep her profile up — rallies and marches are planned supporting her and her failed candidacy. That says a lot about the passion that is still out there among her loyalists.

But as Gloria Feldt pointed out recently recently at her blog, HeartFeldt Politics, Hillary seems to have a new focus, even if she is angling for a little “me” time at the Democratic convention:

Hillary’s post-primary awakening led her to embrace her leadership role as a woman and on behalf of other women. Throughout the campaign, she downplayed the importance of her gender … Since the campaign, she has been much quicker to champion women’s rights. For example, she led the charge to challenge the Bush administration’s proposed new regulations … that would redefine many birth control methods as abortion and allow medical providers to refuse to provide them. She seems to have learned a lesson about being her true self; other women will take courage from that.

She could be a champion not only for issues that have traditionally been described as “women’s issues,” but could also be an active voice in fighting against one of the things (no, not the only thing) that led to her defeat — sexism in the media, according to guest poster Deb Della Piana at The Political Voices of Women:

In nearly every article I read, the author was quick to point out that it wasn’t the media’s horrible treatment of Hillary Clinton that caused her to lose. It was Hillary herself. I agree for the most part. However, the reporters and pundits who had a field day attacking Hillary Clinton on personal grounds rather than policy issues do not get a bye on this one. Maybe they can justify their actions in their own small minds, but I do not think we should. Women, in particular, should view this as part of a broader attack on our participation in government.

This is where Hillary Clinton and her legions could really make a difference — calling out the media and not letting them get a pass on their coverage. At the Women’s Media Center blog, Barbara Cohn Schlachet wonders:

In the aftermath of the primary season, I’ve been puzzling over the lack of reaction, on almost every front, to the degree of overt sexism that was pervasive in the media during this time. With the exception of organizations and websites that supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, and those that are specifically oriented towards the rights of women and the portrayal of women in the media, there has been a deafening silence from the candidates and their campaign organizations, from the mainstream media, from the DNC, the RNC and from the public at large, both male and female.

Had this overt misogyny been any other form of bigotry, there would have been justified outrage. Had MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson said, instead of “Every time she [Clinton] comes on TV, I involuntarily cross my legs,” “Every time he [Obama] comes on TV, I involuntarily check for my wallet,” more than a public apology would have been demanded. So, why is sexism different? Why does it fly under the radar, even when it’s overt? Why are the media and the public so willing to accept it?

So why not look to Hillary as a true force of nature and take this time to adjust what we expect from the “first viable woman candidate for president” in her post-campaign role? The real leadership opportunity for her now is the chance to rally women — no matter which presidential candidate they support — around the idea of being taken more seriously in the process and by the media.

There are going to be plenty of chances to see that effort in action at the Democratic Convention with groups like the Women’s Campaign Forum, EMILY’s List and N.O.W. holding events to promote women running for office and participating more in politics.

Hillary is uniquely situated to be the one we look to, whether we are Democrats or Republicans or Independents or Libertarians or politically unaffiliated, to change the tone of how all women are portrayed, especially women politicians.

I hope she doesn’t pass it up.

Cross-posted from BlogHer, where PunditMom is a Politics & News Contributing Editor.

Looking for some political chat this weekend? Then come by the MOMocrats show on BlogTalk Radio on Saturday, July 26 at 3 p.m. Eastern/12 Noon Pacific for our show!

We’ll be talking about the BlogHer conference, our upcoming trip to the Democratic National Convention AND our book club chat about Arianna Huffington’s book, The Right is Wrong.

I will be your host, but loads of MOMocrats will be on hand for this lively discussion!

I know that sounds like a bad joke. But it’s no joke and the punch line can only increase the voting angst so many already have.

The presidential primaries are almost over, but that doesn’t mean we can stop thinking about voters and the voting process. After all, what if a group of radical, senior-citizen nuns stormed a polling place and demanded to vote with expired ID’s? …….

How does this story end? Read the rest of this post over at BlogHer, where PunditMom is a Contributing Editor for Politics & News!