:: netwoman's blog ::

Wednesday's Feature Blogger: Jeneane Sessum

This week's feature is Jeneane Sessum who blogs at allied and created a lovely community of women bloggers at Blog Sisters. Most people are familiar with her sense of humour and wit on her blogs.

TK: How do you think your blog became such a popular blogger ?

JS: Is my blog popular? I never know, really. Many women who started blogging shortly after I did have gone on to big hit counts and much blog notariety. I really haven't found the secret to their success and my lacking in it. It only bothers me sometimes. Like at night when I'm trying to fall asleep. No, only kidding. Sort of. Really, I think there are flavors in blogs, and while the specialists gain readers who are incredibly interested in the blogger's specialty (tech, law, sex, politics) and hit their pages every day, the more generalist bloggers--like me--don't get that same flow. Our visitors come for the writing, I think. Those who come to the generalist blogs are folks looking for little pictures of life from good writers. They're not coming for information or news or opinion columns, instead they're checking in, seeing what kind of things are bothering or inspiring me today. Perhaps in not giving my readers any expectations on what they'll find on my blog, I can delight them more easily. I think I can chase them away more easily too.

I've toyed with bringing a focus to my blog. Like PR, Marketing, the stuff I could write about til the cows come home. While I like to write about those things once in a while, those topics don't sustain me. They don't make me happy. I'm here to laugh and giggle and cry and maybe even throw up. Not to learn what I could be learning in any online magazine. So that's kind of how I approach my blog.

TK: The Perseus results indicate that more women are blogging than men. But it does seem that the blogs that get the most attention are authored by men. Do certain types of material get more attention than others? Why so? Others feel it is the linking. What are your thoughts about this?

JS: I think it's because more and more we're bringing to this place the patterns from the offline world. Early on, we happily broke those patterns--at least some of us did--writing about stupid stuff and meaningless stuff that was actually doubley meaningful in the way it connected us. But as more bloggers come in from the mainstream, more old world habits come with them--like looking for news here on politics, for example. When I started reading blogs (boing boing was the first blog I got hooked on) long before I started Gonzo Engaged two-plus years ago, I read blogs to laugh, because they were keeping up with the oddities you couldn't find anywhere else. Then 9/11. Then the War. And the political bloggers, most of whom were men, got a firm footing and massive readership, which they maintain to this day.

Again, to me it's about what you come to blogging (reading or writing) for. If it's to replicate the offline world, you'll seek out the blogland versions of Hanity and Combs and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Riley who garner the same interest and same attention as those types do in mainstream media. If you're coming here to connect with others who are interested in what you're interested in, who have kids that don't sleep at night like yours, who are exploring what love is, what loss is, what joy is, what grieving is, and maybe all of that at the same time, then you're NOT replicating big media broadcast bullshit, and you won't be spending a lot of time on Instapundit and Glenn Reynolds' blogs. Because you won't get those things there.

You get the human heart in blogs like Shelley Powers, Paige Waehner, Chris Locke, Marek J. -- it's not that they're women's blogs or men's blogs. It's all about voice. I want voice when I read a weblog. If I want information, I'll go to google, maybe hit your blog, maybe read it once. Voice is what resonates, male or female, and keeps you coming back for more.

TK: What are your thoughts on why there are so few women deemed to be 'A
list'?

JS: It's the corporate and broadcast meda structure revisited, and it makes me ill. As more and more readers see blogs as news (the power of RSS and aggregators, I making things "worse" in this regard) I suspect the men-on-top A-List list won't change. We need new metrics in this medium to determine worth and say-so. But metrics for meaning and context (as opposed to information and content) don't translate to blogging so well. Or perhaps to anything, for that matter. I am certain there will be a few women who will climb the Top 100 because either they are great writers or because they play the game well. This is okay. It's not mine to criticize or celebrate. But both women and men who view blogging as more of a career than a conversation, and tailor their posts accordingly, aren't the types I want to read, whether they're A-Listers or not. The male-dominated political blogs will probably all do well for a long time to come. For the rest of us, 101 on down, both men and women, I think we can grow here more through connecting with one another and telling our stories. That's enough for me. Except when I get really pissed off about it. ;-)

TK: What are your thoughts on the blogosphere as gendered space?

When I was interviewed by the NY Times on women and weblogging, most of what I said didn't make the article. I blogged about it here.

When I started blog sisters nearly two years ago, it wasn't so much to have a blog dealing with women's issues. That wasn't my goal at all. It was specifically to feature women bloggers' writing in a place that was easily accessible, and to use the power of our combined voices to be heard. We have more than 100 members now. Elaine of Kailily and Andrea of ARJLog are co-administrators and handle the bulk of the member administration and graphic/design work. Bless them. They've both been instrumental in keeping that blog organized and alive.

Today, blogging is in a new place from where it was when I woke up one night with the idea for Blog Sisters though. I think many in blogland think of Blog Sisters as a kind of exclusive women's blog where women bloggers bitch about men and the world at large. That's really not it at all. You have to understand, two years ago women blogger voices were more sparse here, and were scattered about the net. To me, it made sense to say, "Hey, any women bloggers who also want to contribute to a blog hosted and written by women, COME ON IN! The more the merrier."

There is a huge story in the evolution of group weblogs that I'm itching to write. It's fascinating the way a group of voices on one page interacts within the blog and outside of the blog. It's fascinating how topics change, how disagreements ebb and flow, how sometimes the collective writing gets intensely interesting and sometimes incredibly not so. It's fascinating that after this long, women still want to join, and members who you think have left pop up with a great post when you're not expecting it.

TK: Have you ever had any negative responses to your blog - in the comments perhaps, or via email?

JS: I did get heat for the tagline of blogsisters--where men can link but they can't touch. It's not really true--men can and do comment there. I just thought it was a cute, memorable tagline. I do PR and Marketing for a living. I couldn't resist that tagline. But yah, I've heard all the "you're exclusive" arguments and "why should women be grouped and recognized by gender -- it's limiting" arguments, and blah blah blah. The point is, the blog isn't exclusive. You only have to be a woman with a blog to join. And men can (and do) comment on blogsisters, or link to us from their blogs just as they do with weblogs that *don't* have comments. Blog sisters is an open blog, and it always will be. I don't direct the content, where it goes, how it goes, and i purposely don't post much there so as not to be the voice that drives it.

For Gonzo Engaged, we're so freaky and twisted over there, we never get in trouble. No one bothers us. We bother one another instead. Truth in advertising helps.

For Allied, oh, yes, well sure. You get really smart people who challenge you in comments and email, and I love that because it helps inform my writing and my thinking in dialoging or having a knock-down-drag-out argument with them. Then you get assholes. Oh yes. As I said on Gonzo more than 2 years ago, there are potholes and assholes here, just like in the real world. Thank goodness here we can choose to close the browser window and shut down.

TK: What has been your biggest challenge in the Blogosphere?

JS: Not letting it take over my entire life, because if I could, I think I would live inside my blog. That is, except for the weeks that I despise it.

Jeneane, you are very cool - thanks for sharing and chatting with me...

posted by Netwoman @ 11:11 PM