Very excited, after years of hearing good things about it, to be attending BlogHer this year in San Francisco. I’ll be in town July 17-23. For a woman in social media, this conference is a big deal. It’s arguably the equivalent of SXSW for networking, empowerment, community and inspiration among all manner of women in social media.

Unfortunately PodCamp Boston is that same weekend.

PodCamps are among the most inspiring, fun and community-focused tech events I’ve ever attended. If you can go to one, you should. Though I can’t attend, I’m paying for “my” registration, to support the event and letting the organizers put that to use as they choose. Are you in Boston July 19-20? Register here.

It’s incredibly difficult for event planners to pick the best dates to suit venue, budget and attendees. That PodCamp organizers did not schedule to avoid conflict with BlogHer is a bummer, but really not that big of a deal. What made me sad was PodCamp’s response to the scheduling conflict.

When the PodCamp date was announced, I and other female PodCamp fans immediately pointed out the conflict. The response was a bit abrupt, but not unreasonable. PodCamp did not want to schedule in the fall or close to the Podcasting and New Media Expo, and the BlogHer dates had not been checked. Fair enough. But.

Once known, the conflict was not shared with other PodCamp organizers. There was no discussion or group decision made by the organizers to go ahead despite it. That sent a poor message. It implied that the organizer doesn’t “get” BlogHer’s significance or consider it important enough to merit discussion. PodCamp also never acknowledged publicly that while unfortunate, the choice had to be made not to avoid the conflict.

In our world of transparency, conversation and consensus-building, it’s important to at least listen to the concerns, decide as an organizing body, and acknowledge that a choice had to be made. An organization can address concerns like this quite easily if it chooses to. You can mention it in your blog and explain why. You can creatively embrace the conflict by encouraging remote collaboration during both events. BlogHer has a big Second Life component, why not reach out to that?

When I brought my concerns about this conflict up privately with the organizers many weeks ago, and mentioned I would blog it at some point, there was a second opportunity to creatively engage with the scheduling conflict. While my concerns were taken seriously and discussed fairly, there was still no public acknowledgement of the conflict. There was still no creative effort at outreach.

PodCamp is an awesome organization. I have close personal affection for all of the organizers, and adore what they have done for women (and men of course) in social media. They are an exemplary crew. But, gosh…

I post because I hope this can be discussed productively. I empathize with the organizing stress my friends are under. But it would be uncool of me not to raise this point merely because of my personal feelings about the team.

What are your thoughts? Does a scheduling conflict with the biggest women’s social media conference merit some public comment or creative outreach on the part of the organizers?

Hear him, hear him. Jeff Nolan (punctuated with a hilarious suggestion from Anil Dash) on how counterproductive corporatespeak is.

See also: Bureaucraspeak, featuring links to Josh Hallett & Brazen Careerist primers on Jargon and What Not to Say.

I truly do not know where to begin. Disney thought they should… There aren’t words. Just go wince. I mean watch.

A riff about what you THINK while you are presenting…

That voice inside your head, can I speak with it for a moment?

Look, you need to lay off. Your person has been trying pretty hard lately, and I just don’t think you’re adding to the effort.

Honestly, if your person were my client, I’d tell them to fire you. Even you know that. If you heard someone in the audience heckling your person the way you do — nonstop — and creating all kinds of insecurities and problems, you’d put the smackdown on THEM too. Why do you expect special treatment?

Try a little kindness. No, seriously. It’s pretty much the only thing that really works, per Dale Carnegie via Scott Adams. Get your supportive, considerate talk on. If you’re not even rooting for yourself, how can you hope anyone else will be? (Psst, don’t tell but they will be anyways. the audience WANTS you to succeed!)

In recognition of Movie Misquotes week on the twitter.com/twitterflix game, some thoughts on getting quotes… Wrong.

It’s a small point, but it matters. Quotes are fun in presentations. They can add a lot. But when they’re wrong — especially famously wrong — they can be just one less thing to believe about you.

Take a moment to check your quotes and get them right. Don’t just go with the first search result. Can you find 1 or 2 good references that agree? This handy page of famous misquotations at Wikipedia is a good start. Some that surprised me:

“Let them eat cake.” — Marie Antoinette (The original quote comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions)

“Elementary, my dear Watson.” — Sherlock Holmes The complete phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson” does not appear in any of the 60 Holmes stories written by Doyle.

“Billions and billions.” — Carl Sagan Johnny Carson coined this while parodying Sagan. (Who had enough of a sense of humor to say it jokingly in class.)

“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton It’s actually “PowerPoint tends to corrupt, and absolute PowerPoint corrupts absolutely” (ok, we jest)

Even the much revered Twainism “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt” doesn’t actually appear in his books. It also gets attributed to everyone from Einstein to Lincoln. Twain’s Puddinhead has a paragraph or so that amounts to the same thing, but not the sweet, pithy turn of phrase that’s come down to us.

Like any “rule,” break this one when you need to. Wrong quotes aren’t nearly as annoying as the urban legends clogging up your inbox. They may even have more impact than the correct words. But you might want to use them with a wink and a “did ya know they never said that?” to increase your credibility…

The one that kills your credibility? And tacitly asks the world’s permission to voice your ideas?

Stop it!!!

Now.

Please?

Guilty pleasure Jezebel delivers with this well-sourced post on the Little Girl Voice and otherwise successful women who use it:

“… the disturbing — and apparently growing — trend of adult women who sound like little girls… this sort of vocal dumbing-down among female professionals. The theory behind it is that some women are either so scared of their own professional shadows or so afraid of being labeled feminists that they “overcorrect” by speaking and/or acting like young girls.

…

But, seriously: If, as Naomi Wolf intimated in the Washington Post yesterday, the childlike behavior exhibited by certain women is some deep-seated attempt to reassure the world of their vulnerability and femininity, who exactly is pushing them to do so? Other women? Or the same type of men who criticize someone like Hillary Clinton for being nakedly ambitious and “shrill”?”

For a variety of opinions, read the comments too. I think the point most missed by the commenters is which the overall pitch of your voice may be hard to modify at will, the tone and inflection are all yours and frequently used to “Little Girl” effect. It’s not that women have to be poured into a mold of “booming professional woman voice.” More important is to be clear about what women are adding to (and detracting from) the genuine voices they have.

I’m concerned on a lot of levels about the trends suggested in the NPR story, particularly as womens’ voices are figuratively and literally criticized as shrill, nakedly ambitious, etc.

Get your fresh news right here at Great Presentations Mean Business, yup. Ahem. The following post was (obviously) salvaged from my drafts folder. I had all kinds of witty and insightful analyses to pass along, but in the interest of getting these links posted…

Jobs’ keynote yesterday at WWDC 2007:

Guy Kawasaki photographed the slides and posted them to Slideshare:

Engadget live-blogged the entire presentation along with photos:

blackrimglasses interpreted the announcements for us all, with a nice pithy opener:

People seem to be a bit disappointed that Steve didn’t spontaneously combust, reveal he is god and then cure cancer at the keynote today. However, I for one was impressed.

Of course, we all know how this story ends.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Garr had some great insight and background to the Gates v. Jobs presentations “meme” that was being chatted up in the blogosphere.

Oldie but a goodie. Thanks Scott Monty for the reminder that this has been eating a hole in my “blog about” bookmarks file!!!

PPT Angst — The Beat Goes On, in a new direction. Jeff Nolan’s refreshing post adds clearer thinking to the “Ditch PowerPoint” meme. Let’s change how we’re using PowerPoint, and let’s make it easier (sourcing good design) to do so.

Everyone knows a company (or person) that swallowed the kool-aid and relies “too much” on PowerPoint. But is “too much” the problem?

In any given PPT rant, substitute the word “outline” for the word “PowerPoint” (that’s what most PPT abusers are doing anyways) and the problem becomes relying too much on outlines.

Presenting a new idea? Outlines keep you organized, but don’t belong in your visual aids. Summarizing a project for management? A written report/executive summary outline is great in addition to your presentation (you gotta keep ‘em separated). If an outline is NOT the best tool to use, don’t make your PowerPoint into one.

Pretend the projector breaks. Would you post that entire bulleted outline and heavy text onto a whiteboard, flip chart or blackboard? Or, would you draw a few diagrams and key illustrations, particularly the ones that spontaneously arose during the conversation? (Because you DO promote conversation when you’re presenting, RIGHT?)

For any given Pistachio client, it’s not (necessarily) how much PowerPoint is used, it’s how it’s used.

UPDATE: My favorite post (Stephen Colbert) about how bullets CAN work and, this brilliance from Hugh

You know exactly what you mean to say. Do they?

Theoretically not safe for work in a French-speaking office, but I very much doubt it.