tech tips

I will admit at the start I am biased. This is the second year I’ve taken part in Mumsnet Blogfest, last year I was a clinic adviser, and this year I was in the clinic and also on a panel. I absolutely loved it last year, and it fired me up to become much more of a part of our family business. This year it has revitalised me, I met lots of people for 10 minutes at a time and helped them, and I’ve extended that to emails and tweet conversations today.

So yes, I’m biased. I thought the venue was fabulous, the food lovely, the people running it excellent and the company fascinating. I wish I’d been able to split myself in two and hear the lovely Rachael Lucas (now an author with a book deal!) and Emily Leary in the making money session. I’d love to have heard Dr Sue Black enthusing about tech mums (but I managed to meet her later, and I’m chatting with her tomorrow) and I was really sad that Jack Monroe didn’t make it.

Because I was clinic-ing, I only made it to two actual sessions. The first one, with Stella Creasy MP and Richard Bacon, and that bloke who opened a free school, and a lawyer chap. There seemed to be an almost willful lack of understanding of the issues on the part of that bloke, and I found the argument a bit irritating. But Richard Bacon was funny, and the tweets were excellent, and overall it raised a few interesting points.

And after that I dashed out to find my clinic spot. We had vintage chairs to sit in, which was a bit nice, and drinks brought throughout, which is just as well, as I’d have lost my voice otherwise. There was a gap planned in for lunch, which I eventually tracked down in the green room with Emily, and we had time for a brief catch up as we ate. Back to clinic for another couple of hours and then a brief gap before my panel session. By now I was really twitching – although I loved doing the one to one stuff, I was nervous about being up on a stage. But the panel was beautifully organised and went really well, even if Maggie (RedTedArt) and I did disagree on the best format for an RSS feed 😉

Lisa from VerveSearch and SEO Chicks was great on aspects of SEO – her top tip about headlines excellent (I’m hoping to be able to link to an article on that very soon.) Annie from Mammasaurus gave great advice about getting out there and commenting when you’re starting up. Maggie talked about using social media, but targetting different audiences differently. Know how it works.

And my top tip? Self host. Yes, I know some people love blogger. I know wordpress.com is free. But when it comes down to it, I believe that having full control of your content is only possible if you’re self hosting. And I really do think having full control of your own content is good. Once you’re there, learn to backup! I’ll be writing more about self hosting, how to go about it and what to look for in a host over the next few days, as well as covering other questions that cropped up repeatedly.

So that was our panel. It seemed to be pretty popular, and a few people have followed up with further questions on twitter and by email already. (To all those people I spoke to in clinic, I meant it, you can email me 🙂 )

And after that, back to clinic briefly. Then just time to run down to the main hall where the mummy blogger feminism debate was just kicking off.

Yes, that was a carefully chosen phrase. Emily and I arrived just after the jam comment, and trying to catch up by reading the twitter wall was confusing to say the least. Something about you can’t be a feminist and make jam? Or making jam can’t be a feminist act?

Supposed to be a joke I think, but badly chosen or delivered. The problem, from my perspective was that you had a room full of women who were really buoyed up by a fabulous day. They’d been told about changing the world, shown how to make money, had their writing ambitions encouraged. They’d been plied with free cocktails and offered chances to win all sorts of exciting things, met virtual friends in person for the first time, and very definitely left their comfort zones.

Then, suddenly, they were supposed to sit passively while a group of individuals some of whom readily admitted they didn’t actually know what a mummy blog was discuss them.

Never going to go well. The audience wasn’t ready to be passive, and the panel were, I think, somewhat taken aback by the response. The feminism panel at Cybher last year was barely attended if I recall correctly – for many women, feminism seems an academic pursuit far removed from making ends meet, or far too concerned with behaviour and appearance instead of childcare and cost of living. Yet if there’s something feminism should be addressing, it’s exactly those concerns.

Why is commodification of family life an issue? (I take this to mean that sponsorship and monetization of blogs is a bad thing.) It didn’t start with blogs. And I actually think that proliferation of commercial blogs isn’t so awful. It’s allowing women another way of making money around their family, and giving them a voice and a chance to form a network completely outside the usual power structures. And of course people tend to present their best side on blogs – bit like I didn’t see anyone there in a onesie. We dress up for strangers. All of us. Or perhaps the panel would like us to believe that’s what they wear when relaxing in front of Strictly on a Saturday evening.

There are a huge number of blogs out there at the moment ranting about this particular debate, and I think it’s a great shame if it overshadows what, for many people, was a massively positive day. I think blog conferences offer us so many chances, and I’m sorry that this one ended on a slightly sour note. Having said that, I think the gin on offer afterwards did a lot to rescue things.

Personally, I’ll be back for Blogfest 2014 if they’ll have me. And before then, I’m going to be building on connections I made on the day. And did I tell you I got to take a picture of Sue Black with Jo Brand? (I was too star struck to say hi to Jo Brand, even though I was in the green room with her.)

Oh, and thank you for the cake.