We’re One! Birthday Bash Recap and Announcements

This has been quite a whirlwind week for the small team at SheBlogs – preparing for our big SheBlogs Birthday Bash which took place last night at the Whiskey Blue, W Hotel, Ft. Lauderdale. The event – at risk of tooting our own horns – was a success – the team at the Whiskey Blue did a tremendous job helping us create an intimate but hip environment for our bloggers, our gift bags were a success, our birthday cupcakes – from Bake Me A Wish – were a big hit. Most importantly, we were surrounded by a tremendous group of friends – both new and old – who helped us ring in our milestone and shared in our celebration.

Specifically – the event would  not have been possible without the help of the following people, who deserve special recognition:

- Michael Conner – my co-founder and co-planner
- FloridaMommyKat – who not only helped us with set up and break down, but manned our wine bar and educated guests on the wonderful world of wine
- Mark Laymon – founder of South Florida New Tech Community – who helped with planning and execution from our first meeting through our last guest
- The South Florida New Tech Community – for their amazing help promoting and manning our event

And – last but CERTAINLY not least:

- Lindsay Chung – for her fantastic work manning and moderating our Twitter event last night!

We’d also like to thank our sponsors – Whiskey Blue, Shutterfly, Boston Proper, Glade, Pillsbury, iStockPhoto, Threadsence, Lumirance/Kira Labs, Tribune Media

And our fabulous wine bar partners – Hahn Family Wines, Niner Wines, Cellar No. 8, St. Supery, Rodney Strong Wines, and Keel and Curley.

And now – on to the goodies!

When the party kicked off, around 7 pm, we were around 3200 bloggers strong, and we’ve been incredibly fortunate to have seen more than 100 new registrations in the past 12 hours! It is with your help, support and promotion that we’ve been able to see the amazing growth we have over the last 12 months, and it is that level of success that has led us to what was perhaps the most important announcement of the night: next May, we’ll be hosting our first full, three-day blogger conference, to be called SheCon ’11. We’ll be announcing details about the conference next week and in the coming weeks as speakers and sponsors sign on with us, but we wanted to announce a few key points right away:

- Tickets for bloggers will be FREE. We are offering all bloggers who register before November 30 free conference access, and we’ll be working hard over the coming weeks to get the best discounts for our group possible to make travel and lodging as economical as we can. We know how hard you all work, and we know that our sponsors, exhibitors, and speakers are there for you – why should you pay hundreds for a conference pass when you, the blogger, are the main attraction? Tickets will go live at 3 pm today, Friday, August 27.

- We are announcing our call for speakers – not only will we have headline sessions and educational presentations, but we’ll be hosting breakout sessions and panel discussions, and we want to hear from you. Do you have a suggestion for a panel or presentation? Would you be a great speaker? Submissions can be made at the conference website.

- PR pros – we’re looking for exhibitors, sponsors, and partners for our event, and we’d love to hear from you. Bloggers – we’d love your help spreading the word to your network of PR pros to make our event as amazing as possible.

Be sure to check back on SheBlogs and on our Shutterfly Share Page – http://sheblogs.shutterfly.com – for photos from our photographers and guests! Please be sure to post your own SheBlogs Birthday Bash celebration shots, whether you were participating live or via Twitter!

Again – thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating our first birthday! We hope that our second will be just as fun – and look forward to the next 12 months!