Blogging While Brown was more than just a conference for bloggers of color; it was about the latest technologies, tools and blogging all working together. The topics of conversations, panelists, as well as keynote speakers focused on several different issues on how blogging gives us voices and how to use our voices through the internet; not only by blogging but also through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. In each presentation, the tools that were highlighted show how they all integrate together, making it easy to cross post. What I took away from this conference is this: 25% African American (some believe more) of Tweeters are Black, effectively twice the offline representation. It was clear that Twitter is becoming a huge part of the connected Black community. Twitter is at 100 million users. On Facebook there are 500 million users, 100 million are US users and 400 million users are international. As Scott Hanselman, Microsoft Principal Program Manager Lead, said, “Most Black folks access Twitter on their mobile phones, tweet twice as more as Whites, have a tendency to ‘live tweet’ during events or TV shows and Black Professionals agree Twitter is an extremely valuable networking tool, over LinkedIn. ”This was the third year for Blogging While Brown. Those who attended were new as well as seasoned bloggers coming from all different industries as well as small business owners, politicians, and activists. An incredible 70% in attendance were women. Our purpose of attending this conference was to facilitate conversations that can lead to collaboration among bloggers. Those who we met and had conversations with were to name a few…..
Adam Connor, Associate Manager for Privacy & Global Public Policy for Facebook twitter @adamconnor
Scott Hanselman, Principal Program Manager Lead, Microsoft: twitter @shanselman
Presentation: “32 Ways to make your Blog suck less”
http://www.slideshare.net/shanselman/32-ways-to-make-your-blog-suck-less
Danielle Lee, PhD, scientist twitter @fetesociety
One of the Panellists for “Bloggers as Educators and Change Agents”
Mayor Shirley Franklin, Mayor of Atlanta & Alliance for Digital Equality twitter @digitalequality
One of the Panellists for “New Media for Social Change”
J.Jioni Palmer, Communication Director for Congressional Black Caucasus
One of the Panellists for “New Media for Social Change”
Anil Dash, Expert Labs & Dashes.com twitter @anildash
One of the Panellists for “Break Through Bloggers”
Baratunde Thurston, TheOnion, JackandJillPolitics,Science Discovery, Comedian @baratunde
One of the Panellists for “Break Through Bloggers”
We’re hoping to get Tameiko Davis blogging and then speaking at next year’s conference which will be in LA. Blogging has been around for over 30+ years and has given most of us a voice and a space to be seen/heard, which creates more the current micro-conversations through online/mobile social networking/media spaces. Having attending this event makes my commitment even stronger towards building our online communities through all avenues such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Bng Jobs Blog! 2011 will be OSD year!