Meeting Up at BlogHerd

The first BlogHer conference had about 300 women, this year over 3,000 stampeded through the San Diego's convention center and flash-mob danced together before eating lunch. What fun and yet the reason I attended wasn't for the celebration, it was to meet up with 8 members of the Green Moms Carnival who I knew only by their postings.

 
BlogHer gave me the face time missing from my communication diet. Pictures are those who made it to the Birds-of-a-feather Eco table ... Left to right Seated:  Katy Farber, Beth Terry, Harriet Shugarman,Standing: Amber Strocel, Micaela Preston, (me)Mary Hunt, and Lori Alper. MIA from this shot Maryanne Conlin who was with a client at another table and the rest of the Green Moms Carnival members. [photo credits go to Micaela for posting the original on her facebook, my phone camera dumped.]

I guess I didn't need to say "Eco-Table" as the coffee mugs and water jugs give our passion away. Unfortunately, that's where the green part of BlogHer stopped. The exhibitor's hall wasn't exactly dark green, more of a scattered green. 

The best of the green crowd -- Moms Clean Air Force a group trying to convince Congress to vote with our lungs in mind. Isn't it a shame that we have to lobby for something that should be a slam dunk common sense vote? PEW Health Group was represented, asking to get anti-biotics out of your food chain. Cotton Incorporated demo'd how they turn old jeans into safe house insulation. PaperCulture.com talked to me about how expensive it is to become sustainably certified, yet his card line up was as organic as he could make it on his own. Dolphinorganics.com took it a step further and are NSF certifed, but that they weren't listed on GoodGuide.com yet. And that was about it for sustainable actions.

Other companies were there with green advertising, but their products were far from green in execution and packaging. For that reason, I'm not mentioning them here. That's where I draw the line, if a company isn't working at becoming truly sustainable, not just painting old products a "green", then they don't get any airplay from me.

The scene on the exhibit floor was that of bloggers-gone-wild picking up tons of freebie stuff. The after parties provided even more plunder. Who needs Oprah when you can go to BlogHer and fill your holiday gift list. I'm not sure how to change that now that the expectation is set, and a part of me wouldn't want to if the products were made sustainably; as for now, it's just more stuff that will end up in an overcrowded landfill.

Sighhhh. I had such high hopes after my first BlogHer conference, maybe some day it will get back to its purposeful roots.