This past weekend I headed to the Utah desert for a think tank retreat as part of Brand About Town’s inaugural advisory board. I am honored to be in this advisory role alongside some truly smart, funny, and passionate bloggers (Julie Marsh, Kelly Wickham, Gwen Bell, and Amie Adams), and to interface with the impressively thoughtful and forward thinking Brand About Town team.
As I’ve described on this blog, it’s been a rocky year for blogging, particularly if you run in mommy blogging circles. And I’ll admit that I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve felt rather blue about the state of blogging, feeling like an idealist, writing-focused dinosaur amidst a vastly growing sea of bloggers hell bent on “getting something” from blogging (other than community and a forum for self expression) and elbowing their way to the head of the pack (tangibly in a swag line or otherwise).
But this meeting gave me hope. It was inspiring and rejuvenating to talk about blogging, social media, and brands in a constructive, creative way. It was humbling to be in the company of brilliant women who care deeply about the online space and for whom creativity and connection are at the forefront of consciousness. It validated my hope that the act of artful blogging is not, in fact, dead.
Related to this, there was one ironic piece of this weekend. We had the pleasure of sitting down for a fireside chat with Julie Powell (the writer whose blog turned into a book and then the movie Julie & Julia). Julie achieved The Dream that has launched so many starry-eyed blogs. But the fame clearly has brought along many challenges; not only the personal challenges one would expect when your life gets turned upside down and someone offers to buy your story, but also in the sense that with fame, it’s possible to lose the very thing that is so appealing about blogging in the first place: the ability to be raw and open and to trust that people are coming to you because of you and what you have to say, not because of your persona (and possibly what you might do for them…OK, there, I said it).
Yes, Julie Powell has made it to that mythical other side, but what was very clear to me is that it’s the craft that is important to her: the way words can help you through a process, the challenge of creatively assembling words to convey a story engagingly, the connection you can foster when you write about things that matter to you and others.
I’m not saying that all blogging needs to be memoir form, but I do urge people to think about why they are blogging. To get past the obsession with monetization and leveraging and swag and junkets. To look at the occasional sample, trip, or affiliate check as icing on the cake, not the end all be all. To return to the basics of creativity and communication.
You might just be surprised how inspired you will be.
10:12 am on October 5th, 2009
Christine, I would have loved to have the chance to meet Julie! Fame can do crazy things to people. Glad to see she was still grounded enough for a fireside chat.
At the end of the day it’s about finding your passion and being true to it. Like you are.
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11:28 am on October 5th, 2009
[...] was just reading a piece on Pop Discourse from the ever-insightful Christine Koh. In it, she talked about something I consider to be the [...]
12:52 pm on October 5th, 2009
A rockin advisory board, to be sure. Thanks for this, so good and so true!
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3:11 pm on October 5th, 2009
My only consolation in watching the *amazing* parenting mag ‘Wondertime’ fold this last year was knowing that, if I hunted around really hard, I would find those thoughtful voices blogging somewhere on the net.
I don’t want more plastic crap, or more rehashes of breast vs bottle: I want, no I NEED, sane, intelligent women not just talking, but *thinking* about parenting and womanhood - what they mean to us, and how they change us - and sharing their thoughts coherently and with honesty, so that I have something from which to grow as a woman doing the tough work of parenting.
Thank you for what you do.
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4:21 pm on October 5th, 2009
It was an amazing weekend. I feel so personally restored after spending time with you and the other incredible women I was lucky enough to be around. I can’t wait to have more discussions about the return to blogging and discourse.
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9:55 am on October 6th, 2009
Clarity of purpose, and the art of the craft itself - without these, blogging would be hollow for me.
No wonder when I met you (how could we have *not* met until now) I felt as if we’d always been friends. Such a pleasure to spend the weekend with you!
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12:19 pm on October 6th, 2009
I was slightly jealous when I read your blog, and now I’m super jealous after reading your comments. And, I agree with Susan Bingham. I was also crushed at the loss of Wondertime Magazine and I look for a replacement “community” online.
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9:24 pm on October 6th, 2009
[...] Which makes this past weekend that much sweeter for me. As one of five members of the Brand About Town advisory board, I relaxed among the red rocks and wide skies of southern Utah and shared my opinions, along with Amie Adams, Christine Koh, Gwen Bell, and Kelly Wickham. We’re an incredibly diverse group – not just in terms of color, but our personal histories and our passions too – but we all share a devotion to the art of blogging. [...]
7:30 pm on October 10th, 2009
I’ve been feeling underwhelmed by the gratification coming from blogging lately, much to do with the overall “gimme” attitude that is prevalent in this community. Thanks for the reminder that it’s not really a who’s who game, but rather an act of passion and love.
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11:40 am on October 28th, 2009
[...] so much awesomeness - all centering around in real life interactions such as those at BlogHer, the Brand About Town retreat, and Monday night’s events that makes me so grateful to be in this space and to have these [...]
4:33 pm on December 1st, 2009
[...] while it was a toss up between a few family and professional trips, I’d have to say that the Brand About Town advisory board retreat was my best trip of 2009. The trip was remarkable in focus, included vibrant, intelligent company, [...]
10:16 am on December 8th, 2009
[...] the first day of the #best09 series (prompt: best trip) I wrote about the amazing Brand About Town retreat in Utah, and I’d have to say that my outstanding moment of peace and solitude this year [...]