“We are smart and we have boobs” A PodCamp Boston 5 Tale

“We are smart, AND we have boobs.”

THAT was my favorite part of Pod Camp Boston 5.

I love un-conferences, I love the energy, the opportunity and the people. I love hearing smart people share their wit and wisdom and I especially love the opportunity to share some of what I know.

This conference was especially good for several reasons.

#1- I got to go with my sweetie, Morriss Partee.

#2- I got to teach advanced Twitter to rockstars.

#3- I met some extremely smart people who happen to have boobs.

I want to spend some time with the third item on my list: the #smartboobs.

On Saturday morning I saw a tweet in the #pcb5 stream from Rakiesha Chase @rawrmeans143 who said she wanted to put together a “Girl Power” session during lunch. I was intrigued enough to commit and after lunch I wandered out to the patio to meet the other women who were curious, too. It was a small, but wonderful gathering of about 7 women and our conversation was stimulating and fun, but far too brief. We decided that we would re-convene the following day, but start earlier and allow time to really broaden our conversations. Rakiesha had initiated a conversation about a Twitter article about women that she had seen and we all agreed was insulting and limiting.

The following day we started to gather, and gather and gather. People just kept coming in (men and women alike) until the room was full with both our original group plus lots and lots more. This lively and intelligent conversation was by far the highlight of #pcb5 for me. How invigorating to be in a room with so many intelligent, caring, forward thinking people! They gave me the opportunity to tell the #TwitterQueens story (xox), too! We didn’t all agree (which is part of the fun), but everyone was respectful and open. This engaging conversation was both enlightening and entertaining and has given me many things to consider and work on. If you want to meet these power house PodCampers you can go on Twitter and search the hashtag: #smartboobs…designated by Tamsen McMahon. After someone commented in the session that we are smart and just happen to have boobs, this hashtag was quickly adopted by the crowd.

While I did attend sessions and learned lots from soooooo many brilliant and generous minds, my favorite parts of Pod Camp Boston 5 happened out of the sessions. In addition to “girl power”, there was dinner with a small, but special group of people and lots of fabulous hallway chats. I made real friends with several people who I found exciting and wonderful and I can’t wait to grow our little seedling friendship into one big, giant, social media tree.

A final thought. At the opening of the camp Chris Brogan and Chris Penn challenged us to ask for the help we needed and to give help where we could. This isn’t just a good Pod Camp thought, this is a great way of being. So I will close by telling my Pod Camp friends and readers of this blog that I am here for you. I know a lot about real estate, quite a bit about social media, I can teach dance and am a terrific listener. Let me know if you need me and I will do the same.