The Chamber’s policy of featuring members at their events is reasonable, even laudable. While it does not excuse the lack of diversity, I certainly have no quibble with their policy. I do have quibbles about the content that will be presented, or at least the way it is described in promotional materials for “Today’s New Marketing Tools.” One of the panelists, a flyer says, “specializes in using new media and viral tactics which leave an indelible impression on a target audience.” Another “advises clients on how they can exploit digital and social media …”

You get the drift. I can’t help thinking it sounds like tacking some new buzzwords over traditional marketing methods.

Of course, my opinion is colored by my immersion in the world of social media. My business partner, Mike Chapman, and I do social media consulting, and I serve as the executive director of the international Social Media Club. I also just agreed to be a contributing author to the 2008 edition of The Age of Conversation, subtitled “Why Don’t People Get It?”

Yes, I am blatantly self-promoting here. That was, after all, the gist of comments to my “Five White Men” post: women are not as likely as men to promote their own work. Advice taken. The comments, by the way, are well worth reading, and I appreciate those who took the time to add their thoughts to mine.

My original post spurred others to write about the topic further. In Everydotconnects Post Ispires Michelle’s First Official Rant, Michelle Greer said:

We’ve never seen a female U.S. President. Great Britain elected Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher. Indira Gandhi served as Prime Minister of India. Finland, a country with the highest number of scientists per capita in the world, elected Conan O’Brien look-alike Tarja Halonen as president. Although the Catholics in Argentina will not see a female priest, they did elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirschner, who is following in the footsteps of her husband and former president Nestor. Pakistan, a primarily Muslim nation, elected Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister in 1988 and she was leading another election until she was assassinated last December. This is supposedly the freest place on Earth for women, and yet, a Muslim nation elected a female for a leader 20 years before we even get a viable candidate for President.

One of the men who contributed to the discussion, accessibility consultant and web designer Pat Ramsey, wrote in Gender, Social Media, Why It Matters, OK…I’ll Dive In:

It’s an uncomfortable subject for many. It cuts down to a deeply personal level in us, a group already made up of uncomfortable, fidgety socially awkward nerds, geeks and dweebs. Uncomfortable though it may be, we’ve got to look at this.

Brenda Thompson and I will be attending the Chamber event on April 30. I look forward to learning a thing or two from four white men who are very successful in their respective fields. Seriously. It just won’t be about exploiting social media, because I know just how unsuccessful attempts to manipulate the conversation (buzzword alert) can be.

I also intend to follow up on the tongue-in-cheek recommendation of Jackie Huba, who left this comment on my original post: “Maybe we should do a women-only panel on social media for the Social Media Club. And maybe at the last minute we’ll invite a man to be on the panel.”

Stay tuned for that news, which will be posted on Austin Social Media Club as soon as I can get with Jackie to determine a date. If you want to talk about “Today’s New Marketing Tools,” you couldn’t ask for a better presenter than Jackie.

And in the meantime, if you’re in Austin, plan on attending SMC’s April 17 event featuring Jon Lebkowsky, an authority on social media, online community, technoculture, Web strategy, and Internet trends. Jon helped pioneer both the theories and the software behind many of today’s new marketing tools and technologies.

You might say he is One White Guy Who Really Understands Social Media.

Although I came of age at the height of the so-called Flower Power and Women’s Lib movements, the extent of my feminist activism was trying to join a men’s intramural snooker team as a freshman at Baylor University. Actually, that wasn’t even my idea; the guys I hung out with in the Student Union wanted to draft me because I frequently beat them. But I was denied permission to join a men’s team, and the administration refused to make snooker a coed event. So my days as a young, idealistic rebel — including momentary thoughts of a possible future as a professional billiards player — were short-lived.

All these years later I’m feeling some righteous indignation again. Maybe I’ve just been hanging out with Queen of Spain on Twitter for too long. (I’ve even been reading her blog occasionally, but don’t tell her.) Although Erin’s a couple of decades younger than I am and way more liberal, we agree that women are still treated differently, and that it gets old being invisible.

Every few months the blogosphere revisits the topic of gender differences at conferences. Jeremiah Owyang recently asked the recurring question: where are the women speakers in social media, picking up on a post by Lena West, X Chromosome Web 2.0 Rock Stars. Where the discussion really gets going is deep into the comments, with people cross-posting on both blogs.

This is my favorite quote from Lena:

People keep talking about how women are such ‘naturals’ at what makes social media so effective, so why aren’t the female leaders more visible? …

When I ask the question: Who are the male ‘action figures’ in social media? You can almost see them in your mind’s eye.

But, I ask, who are the female power players in social media…we start creating lists.

This afternoon I got an email from fellow Dot-Connector Brenda Thompson with the subject line: “Five White Men Talk About Social Media.” That got my attention and I opened the email right away.

“This just REALLY annoys me,” Brenda wrote. “The Chamber of Commerce is doing a thing on social media. … [she names the panel lineup] … It’s nothing against any of them, but did anyone think for a minute that they should have a woman on the panel?

“Having just renewed my chamber membership for a hefty $439, I will be passing along my thoughts to them, as well.”

It irked me too. It’s not like the organizers would have had to look very far to find some outstanding women to speak, and I’m not just referring to myself. In less than 30 seconds, Brenda and I came up with a list of five or six local women who would have made great panelists.

See, lists are easy to make. But women on lists are still invisible if conference organizers aren’t looking for the list.

We could debate endlessly about why women still lack visibility and what it feels like to be invisible (I’ve got some stories, so don’t get me started).

Instead, I’ll leave you with one anecdote that underscores the problem. This comes from BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort, pointing to Mary Hodder’s recent review of a New York Times article about girls who code online content:

So when they interview people like Doc Searls, Loic Le Meur or David Weinberger, all of whom are very smart about tech, those articles are in the Tech section or Business, but when they talk to girls, who for the record, are far more technical in this article than these three tech experts, girls are put in Fashion. I’ve never seen coverage with Doc or David or Loic in Fashion.

Maybe I need to take up snooker again. This time around I won’t take “no” for an answer. And I want my championship reported in the Sports section, not Fashion, even if I’m wearing my pink boa.

Update: I have indeed been officially invited to join the panel (which, I repeat, was not my purpose in writing this post) and am preparing a bio blurb for future publicity for the event. To avoid scaring the suits, I’m going with a corporate headshot, not my boa avatar.

She sparkles. Even without the stage lights or her signature sequins and fringe. Wearing a plain pair of jeans and a cotton shirt, Wanda Jackson walks onto the tiny stage at the Continental Club for a sound check. I can’t help noticing that she’s a tiny woman. But when she picks up the microphone, the band strikes a chord, and she growls, “Some people like to rock, some people like to roll,” there is no doubt that the larger-than-life Queen of Rockabilly is still making a statement at age 70: “Let’s Have a Party.”

The Smithsonian Channel invited me to sit down with Wanda while she was in Austin for a screening of the documentary of her life, The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice. A second SXSW screening will take place on March 14, and the worldwide broadcast premiere will be Sunday, May 18.

In the 1950’s Wanda Jackson toured with the men who would become the legends of Rock ‘n Roll: Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, and the King himself, Elvis Presley, whom she dated briefly. Although she was the first woman to record a rock ‘n roll song, Wanda Jackson has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That leaves Elvis Costello, who recorded “Crying Time” with Wanda on her 2003 CD, Heart Trouble, incensed. In an open letter to propose Wanda’s induction into the Hall of Fame, Costello wrote, “Look around today and you can hear lots of rocking girl singers who owe an unconscious debt to the mere idea of a woman like Wanda. She was standing up on stage with a guitar in the hand and making a sound that was as wild and raw as any rocker, man or woman, while other gals were still asking, ‘How much is that doggy in the window?’”

My Podversation with Wanda Jackson is split into two parts; we got interrupted for a sound check with the band. Both parts are included below, along with a snippet I recorded during the sound check. It’s a duet with Wanda and Rosie Flores. I could barely hold my little Flip cam still; I wanted to tap my feet, swing my hips and sing along to “Woman, Walk out the Door.”

Special thanks to my Twitter pal, Paull Young, for having a hunch that I was a Wanda Jackson fan. Check out the work he’s doing for the Smithsonian Channel Community.

I’m a parent and a travel writer, so of course I’ve gritted my teeth through “It’s a Small World After All,” stood patiently in long lines to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and scribbled advice for anyone else who wants to tackle the Walt Disney World behemoth.

The similarities are striking between planning an assault on WDW and sorting out the myriad possibilities during next week’s jam-packed South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference in Austin, Texas.

I’ve always advised prospective Disney visitors that unless they want to spend a lot of money to be really frustrated, they need to do their homework to enjoy the parks. You can’t just give it all over to serendipity; there’s too much going on and too many people all trying to do the same things.

It’s the same with SXSWi, but the lure of connection, learning and good times at conferences is like the search for magical Disney moments, right? Aww, put on your Mouse ears and go with me on this one….

Here’s some Disney advice applied to “South By:”

1. Research. Lay out a game plan. At Disney, know the park layouts (yes, WDW is more than one park) and the rides/shows that you really want to see. At SXSWi, know the event layout for each day of the conference — major keynotes, the panels that you don’t want to miss and evening parties that sound promising. I’m sorry about the gobs of awesome events going on simultaneously, but cloning is not an option.

2. Use FASTPASS. Well, maybe there’s no real SXSWi equivalent to Disney’s scheduling system for the most popular rides, since everyone has the same conference badge, but I’ll call it FASTCHAIR. To state the obvious, unless you like standing at the back of crowded rooms for popular speakers/panels, get there early for a seat where you can see and hear. You did pay a lot of money to do all this, so be in a comfortable position to enjoy it.

3. Block out open time so your head can breathe. At Disney you can crash at your hotel so the kids can play in the hotel pool, but somehow that option isn’t as much fun at SXSWi. Instead, you may want to talk to exhibitors like Creative Commons or Utterz while wandering/schwag-collecting in the Interactive/Film Trade Show + Exhibition, see exhibitor special events or watch the Frag Dolls all-woman gamers team kick some overly-confident behinds during the ScreenBurn gaming fest.

4. Don’t forget to eat. At WDW you can call ahead to (407) WDW-DINE to make lunch and dinner reservations at park restaurants, but many don’t do that and end up standing (with itchy kids) in long, hot lines for food. At SXSWi, there are some small food kiosks and cafes in the Convention Center, great BBQ nearby and plenty of Austin eateries, but I always carry a couple of energy bars and water in case my hunger intersects with a speaker that I don’t want to miss. Be your own food Sherpa.

5. Go to the back of the park first. When the parks open at Disney, many visitors start with rides and attractions at the front of the complex. Instead, go straight back and work your way to the front, to help avoid mobs and find lesser-known gems. At SXSWi, you’ll probably have to “throw some sharp elbows in the paint” at popular panels/keynotes, but speakers are much more accessible at Book Readings, the Adobe Day Stage Cafe (where then-unknown Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek spoke last year) or at the live interviews at Studio SX in the Exhibition Hall. Two examples of great stuff at SX Studio 2008: Techsploitation’s Annalee Newitz chats with Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani, and keynoter Henry Jenkins talks to author Daniel Pink about the first business guide done in Japanese manga.

6. Prepare to walk. I’ve seen some really dumb footwear at both WDW and conferences, and I get to sound like your Mom now because I am one. Wear shoes that you can get around in. The Convention Center does have some rooms off in the boonies, and while downtown Austin is fairly compact you will do some walking unless you have unlimited funds for pedicabs or taxis. March weather in Austin can range from 30-80 degrees F. Really.

7. Reserve lodging early. Doh. The most desirable, most convenient lodging at the best prices needs to be reserved early, both at WDW and at SXSWi. It’s a little late for 2008, but if you are pretty sure you’ll be back to South By in 2009, lock down a room now. Even better, amongst all the great people you’ll get to know, nail down an Austinite who will have a spare room/floor space for you next year.

Any big, sprawling venue like Walt Disney World or South by Southwest Interactive holds the promise of amazing experiences or overloaded misery, but a little forethought and planning can help anyone navigate towards the better of the two possibilities.

Final hint: do not miss Bruce Sterling’s yearly end-of-SXSWi rant, even if you’re hung over (or especially if you’re hung over.)

See you in Austin!

More resources:

• Social media tools like Twitter, Seesmic, live-blogging etc. change how we absorb information at conferences
• Connie Reece, Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang and others light up the night at An Evening of Conversation Starters on March 10
• Chow down on where to eat during SXSW 2008, from the helpful SXSW Baby!
• Need help figuring out where all the parties are? Step right here for the Shiner beer-assisted map
• SXSWi 2008 coverage in the local indie Austin Chronicle
• SXSWi events on Upcoming.org, even including a rodeo visit
• Hey, there’s not enough going on — let’s do BarCampAustin III!
• SXSW ‘08 Insider’s Guide on ning

Networking and meeting great people:

• Online networks expand your in-person networks and 5 mindsets to reshape your networking
• SXSW: How to fit in at a geek conference, from a Texan who knows
• Austin-based Thom Singer’s 66 tips for better networking
• Chris Brogan’s ideas for improving your conference meet-ups
• Join the Twitter village and see all the tweeps coming to Austin on the SXSW Twitter wiki
• The ultimate guide to networking with bloggers, on ProBlogger

So many online friends will be in Austin for SXSW, and I had planned on being there every day and meeting up with as many of them as possible. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend much of the conference, but there’s one place you can be sure to find me on Monday night — at the Conversation Starters event the Social Media Club of Austin is co-sponsoring. Here’s the scoop:

__________________________

Federated Media and Dell, along with Bulldog Solutions, The Conversation Group, and Social Media Club Austin, cordially invite you to join us for an evening of “Conversation Starters” at the Iron Cactus on Monday, March 10, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Over drinks and appetizers, you’ll have a chance to share ideas with a number of people who have volunteered to start conversations: Shel Israel, Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Charlene Li, Chris Heuer, Mack Collier and Lionel Menchaca, as well as several Federated Media authors.

Space is limited, so please register and print out your confirmation.

NOTE: YOU MUST BE A SXSWi BADGEHOLDER TO ATTEND.

__________________________

Hope to see you there!

Susan Reynolds and I have been invited by the folks at crayon and their client, ooVoo, to be part of the upcoming My ooVoo Day With … series of video chats. To launch their beta version with a demonstration of the new service, which allows up to six people to video chat, ooVoo recruited about 20 bloggers/authors/speakers to host informal chat sessions, on a topic of their choosing. In lieu of paying each of the participating hosts, ooVoo will donate $1,500 to charity; most of the hosts have chosen to designate their funds for a cause dear to my heart, the Frozen Pea Fund.

This is a win-win-win-win situation. ooVoo will have several hundred people test-driving their service, readers get to connect with some of their favorite bloggers, who get increased exposure in the marketplace, and a worthy cause gets its first corporate donation.

Susan and I will be hosting several video chat sessions on Sunday, February 10, on the topic From Connections to Community: How Online Relationships Enrich Our Lives.

Each chat session can accommodate four people, and 18 slots were filled the first day. To register, go to My ooVoo Day, download the software (available for Mac users too–only at this link), and then sign up for an open seat.

Here’s a rundown of the times and topics we will be available to talk about:

Session 1 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST — Building Connections and Networking Online
(four 15-minute time slots available)
Topics: Finding and Friending; Your Profile Is Your Personal Brand; Cultivating Relationships

Session 2 4:00 to 4:30 p.m. EST — Taking it Face to Face: stories of meetups and tweetups (three 10-minute time slots)

Session 3 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST — When Connections Become a Community
(four 15-minute time slots)
Topics: How Online Communities Celebrate, Grieve; How to Talk to Someone About Cancer or Crisis; Give the Present of Your Presence

There’s no set agenda, just some topics to suggest the direction of the conversation. I hope you’ll join us for at least one of our 15-minute sessions.

And don’t stop with just one session or one host. Look at the incredible lineup of guests ooVoo has put together — these are the kind of speakers you would travel to a conference to hear. Now you can get some face-to-face time with them from the convenience of your laptop. All you need is a webcam and a broadband connection.

• Mitch Joel/Six Pixels of Separation
• Steve Hall/AdRants
• Bob Garfield/AdAge & On the Media
• Joseph Jaffe/JaffeJuice
• John Wall & Christopher Penn/Marketing Over Coffee
• iJustine
• Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb
• Irina Slutsky/GeekEntertainment.tv
• Connie Reece & Susan Reynolds Every Dot Connects / Boobs on Ice
• Chris Thilk/Movie Marketing Madness
• Erin Kotecki Vest/Queen of Spain
• Dave Delaney/Two Boobs and a Baby +
• Jack Myers & Friends/Media Village
• David Meerman Scott/The New Rules of Marketing & PR
• Geoff Livingston/Now Is Gone
• Allan Cox/Your Inner CEO
• George Parker/Madscam
• Scott Sigler
• Chris Brogan
• C.C. Chapman
• Susan Reynolds/Boobs on Ice
• Laura “Pistachio” Fitton

Sign up now — before all the slots are filled for My ooVoo Day With …

Conference-hopping is probably not the best use of your time, if it’s just for the sake of racking up those badges, schwag laptop bags and stacks of business cards that you’ll never look at again. 

Are you stuck on a social media conference circuit, hearing some of the same speakers again and again?  Why do we sometimes do this to ourselves?

Maybe it’s because you can’t replace the warmth and understanding derived from genuine human contact. Nope, not even with clever replication in Second Life (though try telling that to the Web-savvy daughter of Direct2Dell’s Laura Thomas.)

I want to see your face.  You can see mine, too – I’ll try to have a “good face day” for you.

For maximum business effectiveness in a connected world, it’s all about the face-to-face, according to Business Week:

“Paradoxically, the great work diaspora unleashed by technology is making physical connection all the more important. As companies open more outposts in more emerging markets, the need to gather intensifies.”

On a personal level, it’s very enjoyable to commune with other bloggers and online folks who understand your work (even when your dentist does not.) 

Just like diet plus exercise, combining online and offline acquaintances is a “force multiplier,” to use a military term.  Online networking has the pleasant result of enhancing your face-to-face meetings at conferences.  You feel as though you already know people; very helpful in those first awkward moments of walking into a crowded room during an event.

One drawback to geek conferences is the audience; a roomful of people pecking away on open laptops. Hey, is anyone really tuned in to listen to the speakers? They’d like some face time, some eye contact from somebody sitting out there. Don’t make them talk to the top of your head.

The danger of liveblogging, Twittering, Seesmic-ing, etc. the conference proceedings is that you spend too much time doing secretarial duties and not enough engaging your brain and listening to what’s being said.

I’m glad to see that my colleague Connie is heading to BlogHer Business and Blogger Social 08, both in April in New York, but I’m doing my bit for face-to-face as well.

First, it’s a no-brainer for me to attend the Austin, Texas South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference March 7-11, since it’s held right where I live.   The current list of programming panels is pretty enticing, with more additions to come, and wikis are springing up to keep track of who may be coming from my Twitter group. 

I also love the many evening social events/parties, but they’re usually so loud that I get tired of trying to have a conversation by shouting.

The Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog has great advice for fitting in at SXSWi….

Second, I simply have to fly to Chicago for SOBCon08 May 2-4, because Liz Strauss and her cohorts did such a bang-up job last year that I know I’ll miss seeing some marvelous faces if I don’t go to her “Biz School for Bloggers.” 

Unlike the SXSWi behemoth, SOBCon (”Successful and Outstanding Bloggers”) is kept small and very focused, with lots of interaction amongst conference attendees during the sessions, not just squooshed into moments in the hallways or bathroom.  Gotta go!

Finally, I’m heading to San Francisco in July to go to BlogHer 08. 

I spoke at this conference last year, and had a blast meeting all kinds of bloggers and soaking up inspiration from speakers like Esther Dyson and Annalee Newitz.

Will I see your face soon?

I hope so!

It’s all CK’s fault. She’s the one who talked this timid traveler into venturing all the way to the Big Apple. To be fair, there was no arm-twisting involved. I wanted to attend Blogger Social ‘08 from the moment it was announced. But first I had to make sure I could swing it budget-wise. And second, I had to overcome my disinclination toward cross-country travel.

You see, I love visiting new places; I just hate the process of getting there. I dread long flights with my ample derrière squeezed into a 17-inch seat. And the last time I flew to New York, I tore a tendon in my foot getting off the moving sidewalk in the Newark airport. (Let’s just say that Grace is not my middle name, and New Balance will not be offering me an endorsement contract any time soon.)

So what persuaded me to break my new travel rule for 2008 (No Cross-Country Flying to Some Whoop-Dee-Doo Event Unless Someone Pays Me Big Bucks to Speak)?

People. Bloggers I’ve met and bloggers I want to meet.

Diva Power. Just the thought of me and CK and Toby Bloomberg in the same room gets me energized. Throw in Valeria Maltoni and Anna Farmery … makes my toes tap impatiently and I start counting the days until April 4.

Reconnecting. Looking forward to sitting down again with David Armano and Drew McLellan, whom I met last year at SOBCon and have kept in touch with since then. I love these guys, even if they do have a weird affinity for beef jerky. (just kidding) I’m also hoping for another real-time Scrabble match-up with Geoff Livingston, like we had at BlogOrlando.

International Connections. Blogger Social ‘08 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to meet some fellow Age of Conversation authors from around the world: for example, Luc Desbasieux and Kris Hoet (Belgium); Gavin Heaton (Australia), co-editor of Age of Conversation; and Arun Rajagopal (Sultanate of Oman).

April in Paris? Maybe next year. This year April will find me in New York–will you be there? Look for me. I’ll be the one with the pink hair and boa.

Blogger Social ‘08 attendees so far include: Susan Bird Tim Brunelle Katie Chatfield Terry Dagrosa Matt Dickman Luc Debaisieux Gianandrea Facchini Mark Goren Gavin Heaton Sean Howard CK Valeria Maltoni Drew McLellan Doug Meacham Marilyn Pratt Steve Roesler Greg Verdino CB Whittemore Steve Woodruff Paul McEnany Ann Handley David Reich Tangerine Toad Kristin Gorski Mack Collier David Armano Ryan Barrett Lori Magno Tim McHale Gene DeWitt Mario Vellandi Arun Rajagopal Joseph Jaffe Rohit Bhargava Anna Farmery Marianne Richmond Thomas Clifford Lewis Green Geoff Livingston Kris Hoet CeCe Lee Jonathan Trenn Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas Darryl Ohrt

Shelley Ryan from Marketing Profs attended our social media workshop at Dell last week, and she writes this morning that all of the speakers, moi included, were “simply irrepressible.” (Gee, thanks, Shelley. Now I have a Robert Palmer earworm running through my head …)

“Do you need to have extrovert DNA to be a successful marketer in social media?” Shelley asked in her post, What Is It About Social Media People? “Seems so!” she answered.

Is it that most of us who are social media evangelists are extroverts? Or are we simply passionate about what we do for a living?

As Lewis Green notes in the comments to Shelley’s post, it doesn’t hurt to be an extrovert.

But what’s your take? Can an introvert succeed at social media? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Kelley Burrus aimed her new Flip video camera at me and recorded this video invitation to the upcoming Social Media Workshop at DELL. Now, if two novices can shoot a video, upload it to YouTube, then embed it on a blog … well, why aren’t you using video on your site?

That’s just one of the many things we’ll be discussing at the day-long workshop. Take advantage of the early registration pricing, and don’t forget that you can take an extra $50 off just by using CONNIE as the discount code when you register.

Starting the Conversation: A Social Media Workshop
Dell Campus ~ Austin, TX ~ November 6 ~ 8:30 to 5:30

$299 Regular price

$199 Early registration price (through Oct. 29)

$50 additional discount (CONNIE)