There are two things about me that immediately would make someone question my decision to go to BlogHer.

(Get your mind out of the gutter, its not my left and right testicles…jeez! But, thats a good one!)

1) I have only been blogging for less than a year. I dont really have a “theme” like the bloggers I look up to have and I am pretty sure that most people just skim my posts for the dirty words.

2) Alright, you got me, its my balls.

For me, all kidding aside, there was a very specific reason I was planning on not attending BlogHer, even though its held this year in my home city, San Francisco (technically I grew up in the South Bay, but if SF can claim the Silicon Valley, I can claim their sorry asses too).

They dont let men speak.

Before you start listing all the reasons why that happens (women are under represented at other conferences, men are loud, with all the hot men in social media, the women couldnt concentrate, etc.) let me be specific.

I dont care if men choose to speak or not.

Now that I have completely confused and bewildered, let me say that I believe (dammit, another one of my tenets) in personal freedom. Like the great Humpty Hump said, “Dowhatcha like, unless you like gang bangin’.”

Conference organizers have the right to set up their conferences any way they want. They can sit behind a “community” and lay the responsibility of the decisions made on the “community,” but at the end of the day, a conference is a business like anything else, and most decisions are made to make a conference profitable (I mean successful).

A conference is also just like a concert. You go if the band is good, but more importantly, you go because your friends will be there.

And, I think, to a certain degree, thats what BlogHer is forgetting. Its not the speakers, although they are nice; its the attendees.

My thinking was: If this is a conference for women, by women; where women can interact in a positive way without the pressures of others being around, how does my presence benefit anyone other than myself?

My good friend Erin chides me by saying “Micah, you have never experienced what its like to have 1000 women in a single place truly enjoying and learning from each other.” She is correct, but again I ask, how does my participation benefit the “community”?

I cant speak on a panel, although I know I have interesting and informational things to say. I will be surrounded by women that are there for each other, not some dude from Boulder.

I can visit family, which is always nice, but I could do it much more cheaply then throwing a conference in the middle of it.

So again, why am I going?

Because its important. Women have been a largely quiet force in most communities for a long time. If it takes a separate event to be able to hear that voice, then I need to go and listen. I need to learn and understand. I need to see and experience.

I dont need to talk. These women can read my blog, or see me speak at other events.

I need to be there. I need to be there so that I can understand why 1,000 women are not comfortable attending the other 8 billion conferences that take place year round.

Because learning all of that will make me a more understanding person and how better to benefit others than to understand them.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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Over the past week, I have been really busy. Three sets of friends came to visit (meaning 4 trips to and from the airport) and I backed that up with a trip out to DC for business. In the past seven days, I have been to an airport 8 times.

I am tired. Tired to my core. I am wrecked. Which, of course, is the best time to explore that core.

Someone I am just getting to know well commented on two things that seem to hold true about me: 1) I live in a world of absolutes (I am bipolar, guess it fits); and 2) I have a list of tenets that I believe in and are immutable.

My friend Meg, who is probably one of my favorite and most respected writers I know, and I talk a lot about writing styles in terms of style and flow. She tells me often that I always write in terms of conclusions and completeness. I dont write open ended. I dont allow the reader to garner their own interpretations or continue or shape the conversation.

This is not done on purpose. I dont begin writing a post thinking to myself, “Gosh, I know how this starts and ends!” I just start writing. But, lets go back to my other friend who claims I live in absolutes and have tenets. I am going to take Meg’s advice, and let you draw your own conclusions.

Here are my beliefs/tenets:

• I believe that there is always a right thing to do. We all know what the right thing to do is, we sometimes decide to not do it.
• I believe that honesty and openness always trumps deceit. That the pain that sometimes goes with being honest is worth more than the avoidance that comes with deceit.
• I believe that above all respecting yourself and others allows others to respect you.
• I believe that giving should be done without expectation. Always.
• I believe that you have to always be the most important person to you. That if you dont put you first, then you will have nothing left to give others.
• I believe that its always about the person.
• I believe that how you life your life is a clearer message than telling someone else how to live there’s.
• I believe change comes from one person convincing one person that difference is good.
• I believe that the only thing I really own in my reputation.
• I believe that to make someone happy is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
• I believe that respect is the greatest gift you can give of yourself.
• I believe trust is the most fragile gift you can receive.
• I believe that being the best is a curse, but being the worst is pure torture.
• I believe that my bad habits will one day be my downfall.

I believe this list has gotten too long, so to summarize:

1) do the right thing. always.

2) be open and honest. always.

3) give. time. respect. knowledge. friendship. expect nothing. always.

4) bad habits. bad. avoid.

Why am I so scared of my bad habits (these are personality traits, like talkative, etc. those could be another list)? And what are they? Yay! another list:

• I tend to think in terms of “I,” not “we” or “us.”
• I tend to not see shades of grey.
• I find asking for help really really really hard.
• I tend to feel that I can brute force any problem.
• I tend to worry. a lot. about everything. always.
• I dont ever relax completely.
• I am unbelievably loyal.
• I want everyone to respect me.
• I want to be the best. I want to win. always.
• I dont like being a follower in any situation.
• I like knowing. everything.

If you have been a long time reader of this blog, you will see within those bad habits every failure and mistake that I have experienced. Every one.

No wonder they scare me.

Here is my final struggle. Here, Brad and David, is what I suck at.

My beliefs/tenets exist to make me a better person and a more valuable to the people around me, but my bad habits are endemic to my nature and hard to eliminate or change. Frankly, I dont like it, but dont know if I have the strength to change it.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Im going to bed.

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People love to classify things. 

I thought it was because it was just the way we were taught, but I read recently (cant remember where), its actually how our brains remember things.

For example, if each time I saw a chair, I had to run a quick test in my brain (it has four legs, a seat, a back and its near a table) I would be crippled from forming any higher level thought. (What exactly is a leg and a seat? or a table?) So, we humans, classify things. We make assumptions. We take the complex, and make them simple. Just so we can think.

People have to classify things. People have to assume.

Of course, that action of assuming and classifying can sometimes be bad. (I classify all men as evil; and assume that if they are Jews, then they are untrustworthy). And, sometimes, it can retard our ability to grow (I assume college is just too hard for someone like me). But mostly, it makes life easier to live (I classify rocks as things I dont eat).

So, when I began to think about what kind of blogger I am; how I would be classified, I stopped. You see, my first boss out of college taught me a very important lesson.

Assumptions about people are usually wrong. And therefore, are not good pieces of information for basing an opinion about that person.

I dont make assumptions about people. I can tell that I am about to, and I stop, and I think to myself, “is that actual information or assumed facts.” And I ask questions.

My friend Aaron Brazell, recently launched a site called Pain in the Ass Blogger where he attributed a quote to me that I never said. Initially, I was annoyed, but knew that Dave Taylor knows me well enough to assume that I would never say such a thing.

Shoot, I am even on the thing, which I guess is a compliment (careful when looking at the picture, my greatness may be seared into your eyes like when people looked into the Ark in Indiana Jones.)

But it made me think about what kind of blogger I was.

Robert Scoble calls himself a “tech geek blogger” - but he blogs about trips to Yosemite.

Gary Vaynerchuk calls himself a “wine video blogger” - but on his personal blog talks about personal branding and connections.

AJ Vaynerchuk, who might be the most fearsome Cranium player I know, says he blogs about “social media, twitter and web design”, which I guess makes him a social media blogger - but he has been writing about his internship at Revision3.

Chris Brogan blogs about “community and social media” - and out of most of my friends, I would say that he is pretty true to that, except when he blogs about his family.

Erin Kotecki Vest is a “mommyblogger” who blogs about political things.

Chris Pirillo is a tech blogger who blogs about tech, mostly.

And I could go on. It seems that most folks have a core focus, but dabble in other topics. 

Not sure if that fits me. I tried to blog about politics, and it just didnt feel right. They were my thoughts, but not what I normally write about. I try to keep politics off the table in any discussion.

I write about startups, and the feedback is good. I write about my personal issues and values, and the feedback is generally good. (BTW, the medication seems to be doing wonders, which is why I havent written about it in awhile). I write about things that just make me laugh.

But what kind of blogger am I? Do I need to be a type? Can’t I just be a blogger?

I was approached by a member of a Techstars team the other day, and said “you have been really tough on some startups, I would love it if you would write a post that was critical of us.”

Is that the blogger I am? The mean one?

(BTW, my response: “I am never critical of companies, only people. Do something stupid and I will write about it.” Guess I did, punk!)

On my ride home last night, I saw a quote by Mark Twain on the back of a bus.

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. 

I think thats the kind of blogger I am.

What kind of blogger are you?

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