I'm looking forward to going to blogher next week. I am honored to be selected as a six apart scholar at Blogher. I liked the questions asked by six apart, so I've posted them below with my repsonse.
Who else is going to the conference? Wanna meet up? Anyone interested in carpooling from SF? (send me a note if you have room in your car)
What’s your site about?
ultrasaurus.com: Sarah Allen's reflections on internet software and other topics
- I write about my work, user interface design, how people think and learn, sometimes gender issues
flyingpaperclips.com: science projects for kids
- I record the science classes I've done volunteering in my son's first grade class
How long have you been blogging? a little over 2 years
Why do you blog?
part philanthropic, part personal development
I find other people's web logs to be an incredible resource and I want to give back. I also find that writing regularly makes me a better writer and helps me achieve a balance in my work. My work is not just my job. I have a lot of technical interests beyond what I happen to be doing for a living. Blogging gives me an outlet for this and helps me find other people who are thinking about similar things.
My newer blog, flyingpaperclips.com, is entirely philanthropic. I hope to inspire other parents to volunteer in the classroom and teacher to do more hands-on science early in school.
Tell us a little bit about your history as a blogger?
I started blogging when I left Macromedia about 2 years ago and I realized I was an internet software engineer without a web site. I spent a few weeks experimenting with different web tech for my own personal use... MySQL, wikis, and MovableType. I thought at first my weblog would be full of technical tips like ones that I had found useful when I ran into glitches in setting up my site. However, I found myself writing about more general topics and was surprised how much keeping a weblog contributed to my personal and professional development. I also was inspired by the simplicity of the Movable Type interface. I could hand code a whole web site in HTML and the back-end technology of your choice, but I don't have time to do this for my personal site. Using Movable Type frees me up to focus on writing, rather than on technology (excpet where I choose to demonstrate or write about technology).
What do you hope to gain from attending the conference?
I hope to meet more technical women, both peers and role models. I am intrigued about the prevalence of blogging and am interested in how specific tools can change the patterns of our lives. I hope to find a community of technical bloggers who happen to be women -- some of whom I already read and I would like to meet in person. I hope to end the conference with a better gender-balance in my blogroll.
Those are really good answers. Congratulations on your "BlogHership!"
Posted by: Donna at July 28, 2005 2:57 PM