The most confusing mishmash of info collected into one panel at the BlogHer conference was prolly the one I was on.

Granted, I haven’t attended enough panels to know for sure this one was the most confusing — It’s 2 pm on the 2nd day of the conference, and I’ve only been to 2 panels total — including my own.

But seriously, I was confused by my own panel. Titled “Getting it On(line) for a Cause: Part 2 — Raising Consciousness,” I was asked on the panel to talk about the Starbucks Challenge and the bloggy techniques and apps used for the challenge — del.icio.us, google maps, etc.

So I — and the moderator Rochelle Robinson — thought the panel was about how we can use blog-related technology to promote social change and gave lil presentations to the effect.

Then the panel totally morphed. We did know that at this point, a couple panelists would present the topic for BlogHers Act, a new initiative to to harness the power of women bloggers to make a difference on a single global cause.

But I’d mistakenly thought that this single cause would already be specific and action-oriented, and that the discussion would then turn to specific ways we could use the blog and related apps as a tool to make this Act happen –

Instead, the Act announced was super broad: Global health. And then the two panelists basically turned the convo out to the crowd by throwing out an extremely broad question: What should the cause be?

At this point the panel turned into a bit of a free for all — much like the comment stream on the initial BlogHers Act posts — with one person after another taking the mic to talk passionately — and at length — about their pet cause, including long anecdotes from their childhood or from social work they were involved in. All this was peppered with long and repeated urgings from different people to not get partisan or political or religious or patronizing. The vast majority of the women in the room didn’t get a chance to speak, while a few more assertive women repeatedly gave lecture-length talks about both broad and specific issues that came to their mind.

The panel became a sort of “We women have the power” rally slash “share your feelings” circle….

Certainly, some of the stories were interesting, and all the issues brought up were very important. But I still have no idea WTF BlogHers Act is gonna do, much less how we’re going to accomplish it — and the whole experience was confusing and, in my opinion, not v. productive.

And I’m guessing some of the attendees expected and wanted a panel that actually was about “getting it on(line) for a cause,” not a serious of appeals for one social cause after another with little relation to blogging at all –

So I was a bit peeved.

But then the panel ended and it was cocktail party time on the rooftop of Navy Pier and after free wine and sushi rolls, all was okay again –

Left, me and Britt Bravo. More pics from the BlogHer conference here –

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