business | Dr. Janni Aragon

I’m enjoying my second Blog Her. This year’s event is at Chicago, and thus far I’ve been able to enjoy the sights of the city. I walked around for almost two hours yesterday and then participated in the Blog Her 5K today and saw more of the city. I’ve been here before, so it’s great to be back in the Windy City. I’m quite happy to share that I’ve met some other bloggers, who I have first met on Twitter! It’s nice to have the real face to the Twitter handle or blog URL.

I also find it instructive to be surrounded with other people who get social media. This conference is clearly focused on blogging, but many are on multiple social media platforms. It is also comforting to see such a diverse crowd in terms of race and ethnicity. There are clearly lots of so-called Mommy Bloggers and today’s opening keynote definitely spoke to that niche; however, there are other types of bloggers here who self-identify as writers, style bloggers, and have walked away from the Mommy title. To be clear, I am a mom of two kids and I have nothing against mommy bloggers. I do not self identify as such.

The exhibit has been fun. I have only walked through half of it and appreciate the ways in which the vendors can just scan my registration barcode. However, I imagine that my friends who write about security would smirk about the high level of data mining. I actually walked away from the AT&T vendor, when they wanted my cell number. My email and name was not enough to fill out the form. I smiled and said, “No, thank you.” Don’t get me wrong, I like the free swag and have a bag filled with freebies, but I draw the line at sharing my cell number. I do not like getting calls/texts from businesses on my work land line or cell number.

This is my first of a few posts about Blog Her 13. I was comforted to hear the Blog Her team discuss numbers and trends about blogging and their website. Blogging and social media is here to stay and not some passing fad. I’d like a shirt with that sentence! The Blog Her team is doing a great job. I am including a screen shot of my favorite business card, so far. I met the founder Meghan Jordan at the Peoples Party last night.

On Saturday, March 17th I had the distinct pleasure of participating in a Mom panel on Real Parenting with Shirley Broback and two of the three co-founders and organizers of Breathe Now. The interview was focused on parenting tweens and teens and what this means for us. It was a great interview and I was reminded how almost two years ago we decided that we wanted to organize a conference for women.

The idea was that we have all attended work-related conferences, mom conferences, and social media conferences, but we did not feel like there was a conference dedicated to the three in such a way that also dealt with issues unique to women. And, as I noted on Real Parenting the fateful meeting at Murchie’s was when we came up with the name, Breathe Now. We wanted to remind women that it’s important to inhale, exhale and breathe. We need to be nice to one another and more importantly to ourselves.

My involvement with Breathe Now has offered me opportunity to get to know the other three co-founders well. And, with that I’ve also met so many wonderful people in the local community. We see the conference as part of our project to build connections for women. We run the gamut, though, with a former government worker–turned personal chef, communications consultant, a hotel industry executive, and an academic. What we share with this conference is an acknowledgement of the importance of women supporting one another. There is so much knowledge that we can share with one another–but the only way this will be done is by taking the time to talk and chat.

Breathe Now offers a weekend of events that is sure to inspire. We are proud that Rona Maynard is our opening keynote and Bif Naked is our closing keynote. The array of our panels reminds women that it is OK to take time for yourself. We are also setting up our slate of panels to look at the theme of It’s OK. For instance, it’s OK to take time out for yourself, it’s OK to be successful…this theme is important, as women often apologize for taking time out for themselves or for their success.

I’ll end saying that I hope to see you at the conference on April 14 and 15 2012 at the beautiful University of Victoria!

Dr. Janni Aragon

You have questions, I have answers!

Tag Archives: business

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