Type-A Mom Conference Takeaway “We are all in this together” (and did we all finally graduate High School..?)

September 28, 2009 Katja Presnal

Type-A Mom Conference Takeaway “We are all in this together” (and did we all finally graduate High School..?)

I had an honor to attend and speak at the first (hopefully annual) Type-A Mom Conference organized by Kelby Carr. If I haven’t lost my count I think Type-A Mom Conference was my 9th conference I attended this year. And it was the best so far. I feel like we mommy bloggers finally graduated high school. We have made mistakes, celebrated successes, and we are finally ready to kick it up a notch and start focusing on future of mommy blogging – TOGETHER. The best of the conference was a “Town Hall Meeting” – Kelby saying a short and sweet introduction and then everyone getting an opportunity to say what they thought of the future of mommy blogging. As I watched women laugh and bond, cry the tears of joy and sympathy while listening to each others to take the stand, I realized that I had never felt so much sense of community in the entire time I have been blogging.

I created a Mommy Blogger “Prom Music” Playlist and hopefully these tunes will inspire and make you think.. (it looks like this and you can control it on the top side bar) While I know I didn’t get straight A’s in the Mommy Blogging High School, maybe sometimes I was the teachers pet, next day the geekiest nerd, unfortunately occasionally the mean girl, I messed up a lot, celebrated a lot of successes, was never pretty in pink, attended a lot in the breakfast club I hope you know that I love you all my classmates, my pep rally team, the science club, the cheerleaders (gimme me some more Sugar!).. And want to thank the teachers and those who have helped me and believed in me. I am in this together with you – entering the next stage of mommy blogging, taking the next steps in the new media – will you hold my hand and let me hold yours…? You can read a full recap of 10 different sessions at the Cutest Kid Ever, including recap of the two sessions I spoke at; Blog Kharma and Social Capital and Blogger Outreach and Online Public Relations. The Blog Kharma was my favorite subject to speak about, and I truly hope I was able to inspire people to pay it forward and help each others. Let’s put the social in social media – and BE the community! Our community is as weak as our weakest link, so let’s help each others to succeed and flourish. If one succeeds in our mommy blogging community we should all celebrate it. The big question in the Type-A Mom Conference seemed to be – how will we make this all to work; bloggers and marketers working together. I hope to continue trying to hear as many opinions and answers for that question. One thing was said over and over again “we are all in this together” – we need to figure this one out together, and help each others as we go. It sounds such a cliche and not to mention, songs from the Target ad and the High School Musical. And thus.. I couldn’t resist my pictures and cheesing it up even more and saying sounds like we mommy bloggers finally graduated high school. I don’t try to be mean, it just has felt like there has been so much drama in our online community, and sometimes I have wondered if I ever even saw as childish behavior while I was in high school… But the vibe at Type-A Mom Conference left us to realize what an amazing community we have, and while we are all different, we can create this space for all of us and agree to disagree about things. I bet that’s how the women felt after the first BlogHer, when they graduated from the Mommy Blogging Kindergarten. Then we all “second wavers” came in and “ruined” it. There are new bloggers coming in to our community all the time, I’m sure they will feel the same sense of accomplishment when we graduate the mommy blogging college. Let’s welcome all those new bloggers in, and work together to make mommy blogging bigger and better and even more awesome than ever.

What are your thoughts? Did we graduate high school yet ? Will there be Sorority Wars next or can we just all live our blogging dreams happily ever after? Read more blog posts from Type-A Mom Conference, and link yours to Robin’s post. ,

Katja Presnal

Katja Presnal shows how to live Nordic inspired life to the fullest and plan your dream life. Katja owns Presnal5 strategic marketing intelligence agency and wants to help marketing professionals to combine a dream career and dream life via freelance work. Katja is an award-winning marketing strategist, and a well-known speaker. Katja has lived in five different countries, and seven states in the USA. Her three children were all born in different countries within three years. When not working or jet-setting the world, Katja is at home cooking big family dinners. She has been featured in NY Times, Glamour, Redbook, Fodor's, Forbes and Woman's Day magazines among many other national and international publications and written for MTV3 and Lifetime TV networks.

Comments (30)

  1. Great post — the conference was my first. It was enriching to be around people who know that what I do is important. No one called my blog a “blob” — always a plus!

    It was a pleasure to meet you — I hope we get a chance to talk again.

    9 conferences in one year — yowza!

  2. Looks like it was fun! I wouldn’t have felt right going to Type-A “mom” haha! But I’m glad you had a good time and joined together! Cool!

  3. Looks like this conference would have been the one to take me out of my funk. Glad to see changes are a comin’ :-).

  4. Katja

    Lucretia – it’s been a crazy year, I have been traveling more than ever this year. Well, in places, not in traveling days. And media junkets… living in New York.. I couldn’t even start counting those!

  5. Wow! 9 conferences in one year…wha…wha…what?! Thanks for the inspirational wrap-up of the conference. This was my first blog conference so I have nothing to compare it to (besides writers’ conferences that I’ve attended, which are WAY different!). I’m glad I chose the right blog conference to attend!

  6. Leah @bookieboo

    This was my first mommy blogger convention…or should I now say “digital moms”…that was what everyone agreed on…love that town hall meeting. I totally felt the sistahood and had a great time getting to know you and talking about our similarities. You are right about the blog too. ;)

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