These women made BlogHer Conference '05 happen, and enough cannot be said about all they gave in the effort.

From left to right, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins -- leaders of the effort. (Photo: jdlasica. Click on the pic for more.) Not in the photo, but credited on the website: Purvi Shah and Katrin Verclas.

We've been invited to post our personal BlogHer to-do lists. I wasn't really a part of the event, so I cannot speak to what should or should not happen in the room next year. But I'd like to expand on what I said earlier upon hopes I have for the extended conference next year -- the virtual BlogHer.

1. Attend -- I'm not going to miss year 2.
2. Webcasting -- What was patently obvious in the chatroom was that women and men the world over were dying to know what was happening. The live blogging was brilliant, but people wanted to hear and see what was happening. We* just have to make this happen next year.
3. Remote panelists -- Or remote participation. With video conferencing such as it is these days, we* can -- and, I think, should -- make video-conferenced-in participation a reality next year. This could help enrich and enable....
4. Simultaneous conferences at multiple locations -- Why not open up the possibilities of having remote conferences all over the world? London, Madrid, Nairobi, Cologne, Ankara, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Melbourne, New Delhi, Rio, Mexico City, Portugal, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen, Riga, Pretoria, Kiev....Who knows? It could be possible. Putting out the challenge to women the world over could bring some real surprises. Imagine an interactive, overlapping, interconnected worldwide BlogHer. Okay, I dream big. But if you don't dream it, it won't happen.
5. Documentary -- I don't know what may or may not have happened this year, but this seems a natural for a documentary film.
6. Chatroom 2.0 -- While the chatroom seemed to hold up well, it was not without questions and disappointments. Unsure of which way to go except away from IRC, we made a rush decision to license a hosted chat with 123 Flash Chat. The software itself seemed okay (though having timestamps and IP info hidden away on separate admin screens seems rather counterintuitive), but the customer support from the company was rather slow to respond. We* have a year to research and implement a robust, reliable and refined solution.

* I say "we" in the optimistic hope that we can be a part of next year's conference as well. Nothing has been formalized, or even informally discussed. So I'm not only speaking out of school, some could say I'm talking out of my hat (even though I don't wear hats).

It's encouraging that so many people already have posted their own to-dos. I chalk that up to the mother of all to-do lists held at the end of the conference. There's no question there will be a next year -- not with all these inspiring and capable women on the job! I'm ready to mark my calendar.

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