Updated: 06 Jan 2012

Europe's First-Ever Women, Business and Blogging Conference

4th April 2007

Organisers of the first women's conference about blogging and business in Europehave opened a blog to engage debate ahead of the landmark event with key speakers from BlogHer in the States, AOL and Microsoft.

Blogging is becoming big business and the involvement of speakers from AOL and Microsoft signifies the growing significance of the phenomenon in the commercial world.

The organisers of the event at De Montfort University Leicester on Friday 8 June, are calling for women business bloggers in Europe and the UK to stand up and be counted using the conference blog at www.nlabwomen.com.

The Women, Business and Blogging Conference will include keynote speakers Jory Des Jardins, co-founder of the ground-breaking BlogHer organisation in the US, Meg Pickard, Consumer Experience Lead at AOL Europe, and Microsoft Technology Evangelist Eileen Brown.

This is the first time a conference with exclusively women speakers has been held in Europeto focus on women's views of blogs and the business world, and follows the recent BlogHer Business conference in New York.

For more information about the event, how to register, and to catch up with the blog go to www.nlabwomen.com or call 0116 250 6213.Bursary places are available for delegates from the East Midlands region.

Women, Business and Blogging is organised by NLab at De Montfort University. NLab was developed in the Faculty of Humanities by Professor of New Media, Sue Thomas, to connect creative businesses with writers and generate pioneering partnerships.

Prof Thomas said: "In 2006 NLab ran a series of professional workshops and seminars on blogs, wikis, games and new media writing and in 2007 NLab is proud to present this first-ever European conference for and about women who read and write blogs."

Business is becoming increasingly interested in social media and especially in blogs. In Europe over the last year several conferences have explored the potential of Web 2.0 networks to increase business opportunities - see LIFT07 (Geneva) and Le Web (Paris) for just two examples. But there have been no European events focusing specifically on women and social media - until now.

"Men are definitely invited too. All the speakers are women and we'll be talking about women users, readers and bloggers. But everyone is welcome to attend the conference and participate in the sessions. If your business is blogging, you can't afford to miss this event."

The conference is for small businesses, individuals, researchers, nonprofits, artistic and educational organisations interested in: women bloggers; women in business; women customers; social media and networking; creative communications; innovation and cooperation; customer relationships; opportunities of Web 2.0 and the Long Tail.

Eileen Brown, Technology Evangelist Manager at Microsoft, will talk about changing customer perception through blogging.

"Over the past five years Microsoft staff have noticed a shift in customer and audience perception. Through the use of our innovative blogging guidelines, smart managers and the passion of the people who work for the company, customer interaction through wikis and blogs has brought about a measurable upswing in satisfaction. This is about technologies that have shown "the human face" of Microsoft to our customers," said Eileen Brown.

For further information or to be kept informed about IOCT activities, please contact:
The Director, Institute of Creative Technologies,
De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH
Tel: (+44) 0116 250 6146
Email: eedmonds [at] dmu.ac.uk
www.ioct.dmu.ac.uk

Useful Links