Events that allow me to meet face-to-face with fellow bloggers are very special to me. Make that an event for Women and now it’s super special. The power of 1,000 publishing women in one place will create a vibrant, positive energy at the Westin July 17 - 20.

Preparing to go to BlogHer brings back great memories of Blogger Social NYC April ’08. Blogger Social’s aim was to savor the social part of a social media conference - without the conference. The inaugural Blogger Social worked really well.

I’m sure I’ll learn from the presentations, but I plan to fully indulge in the social aspect of BlogHer as well.

Before setting off for BlogHer, I’d like to take a moment to thank the attendees of Blogger Social who welcomed me so graciously into their midst. We had two great days together of first meetings, conversation and hugs.

In the world of blogging, comments and links are virtual hugs. When bloggers meet socially, it’s a chance for real hugs.

CK and Arun Friday night kick-off Marathon Mixer, Blogger Social ‘08 April NYC

The mission of Blogger Social is to bring together a specific niche of bloggers who write about marketing/PR. Many of the 80+ bloggers who gathered from around the USA and the world were well-known forces in the field. I’m not a marketing blogger, but I am a marketing expert and managed to convince Christina Kerley “CK”, the organizer, that I would fit in.

I first heard of it on Twitter when Connie Reece tweeted that she was speaking at BlogHer Business and attending Blogger Social in NYC, which were conveniently back-to-back in April. I wanted to attend BlogHer Biz till I realized it was priced toward corporate attendance. I decided to wait until BlogHer SF in July.

Blogger Social began for me mid-day Friday. I finally met the delightful Shashi Bellamkonda, who was one of my first friends on Twitter.

Friday night, at the first and therefore highest energy Blogger Social official gathering, I enjoyed conversations and hugs with fascinating women including: Ann Handley, Valeria Maltoni, CK, Lori Magno, Toby Bloomberg, Virginia Miracle, Connie Reece, Jennifer Berk, Kristin Gorski, Tara Anderson, Jennifer Laycock, and Tamar Weinberg.

I tend to prioritize meeting women (sorry guys) but the men I met at Blogger Social were also amazing. Since the party didn’t even begin to slow down until 2AM, I had a chance soak in some wisdom from social media stars Tim McHale, Arun Rajagopal, Todd Andrlik, Darryl Ohrt, and Thomas Clifford. I was happy to grab first face-to-faces with Ryan Karpeles, Steve Woodruff, Nathan Snell, Lewis Green, David Reich, David Berkowitz, Mark Goren, John Wall and Doug Meacham.

Saturday morning, I somehow managed to get out of bed to an early morning brainstorming for Rohit Bhargava’s book “Personality Not Included”, where I got to meet Anna Farmery, Heather Gorringe, Saul Colt, and Matt Dickman. This event was also open for us to invite friends, so I was able to bring Kathryn Jones, who contributed some great ideas to the brain fest.

Aside from an exciting look at the Statue of Liberty, Saturday’s boat ride let me get close to Mack Collier and Terry Starbucker. Chris Kieff “cookied” me.

At the Saturday night dinner, I got to sit between Geoff Livingston and CeCe Salomon-Lee. Seni Thomas and I had a chat in Japanese. I met and succeeded in hugging Amanda Gravel, Jane Quigley, Katie Chatfield,Scott Monty, Mario Vellandi, Greg Verdino, C.B. Whittemore, Kaitlyn Wilkins, Susie and Drew McLellan, David Polinchock and Jason Falls.

Sunday morning, I was grateful that Ryan Barrett put together a brunch, an event that I could bring Ray to. Luc Debaisieux, Gavin Heaton and Jennifer Berk joined us for a lively exchange.

Joseph Jaffe was exchanging supportive tweets with me up to the event. Thank you to Arun and Kristin for tagging me on Media Diet meme. It’s half written, I promise you.

Will I have a chance to hug you at BlogHer?

The women starring in The Last Single Girls webisodes are all currently single. Most of them are noteworthy authors writing about single lifestyle in one way or another. Their books are filled with tears, laughter, humanity and wisdom.

Jerusha Stewart, a single life expert, who has appeared on panels with other single women in a variety of settings, including a recent appearance on View From the Bay, was inspired to develop a series created especially for the web called The Last Single Girls webisodes. The title is taken from her website and her company LSG Network. She describes her project as:

Picking up the conversation where “Sex And The City” left off.

In the short-form webisodes, Jerusha Stewart and her two co-hosts, engage in free-flowing debates devoted to love, sex, and single life. The impromptu roundtables happen everywhere. Jerusha and her co-hosts are seen dishing on the phone, at the office, on the way to lunch, out shopping, having their nails done, at a night club, getting massages, at the movies, over dinner, and in their studio lounge. The improvisational timing keeps the conversation moving with never a dull moment as the three debate current issues facing today’s singles.

Jerusha Stewart is author of “Single Girl’s Manifesta.” She is joined by authors Wendy Merrill - “Falling into Manholes: The Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl,” Rachel Sarah - “Single Mom Seeking: Playdates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World,” Maria Murnane - “Perfect on Paper” and Tracy Watson - “be seduced! (the cheeky guide to being happily single).” Akiba Smith-Francis, who has a book soon to be published called “Stepping Off the Path,” and Jackie Jones, who creates and sells a successful jewelry line, are also featured.

Ray and I spent 4 days in the Bay area, where he did the filming. I took “making of” photos. Ray is currently editing the immense collection of footage we came back with. Jerusha will be coming to LA to contribute to the editing process July 10th. Jerusha’s amazing sister, Deni Tyler, contributed voice over and styling.

How did I get involved? Well, you’ve seen most of these women before on the “Our Favorite Authors” page of Singelringen.com. The philosophy of wearing the ring, the philosophy these women live by and the series itself all mesh perfectly. Even Singular Magazine shows up in the nail salon scenes.

Here’s some “making of” pics.

Rachel, Wendy and Jerusha in the living room scene

Ray wiring Jerusha’s lav mike

Jerusha, Akiba and Wendy shopping at Iniam

Ray shooting the shopping scene

Wendy getting in character for the shopping scene

Ray shooting the girls walking into Iniam with Deni’s assistance

Tracy, Wendy and Jerusha at winery tasting room

Maria, Jerusha and Rachel at nail salon

Jackie checking out the pre-production launch issue of Singular Magazine.

Take a turn at the GAP onto Meiji Dori

You soon arrive at the archway to the main pedestrian street of Takeshita Dori dense with the crowds of Harajuku

Unlike Omote Sando, here you can find some inexpensive, frivolous shopping.

People watching is the main draw in Harajuku, to see and be seen.

It’s just before sunset, my favorite time of day. Greenery and flowers are popping color against the dramatic blue of the ocean beyond. A sharp contrast to the hectic urban streets of Tokyo I have just come from.

There is something about Tokyo that compels most of us to be very serious and work oriented. This was the first trip I stole moments to take photos. Using my iPhone made it easy.

I want to share some of my photos with you here in a few parts. This is Part I.

My overall theme is “Tokyo is Never Boring.” This has always been true for me. The expats I know who are never bored in Japan enjoy their work, learn the language, take a genuine interest in Japanese culture and business challenges, and are stimulated by the diversity of the foreign community living in Tokyo.

If you’ve not been to Tokyo, you must have a look at the train scenes. Public transportation in Japan is outstanding. It is clean, safe, frequent, well-connected and on-time. During rush hour, it is also crowded.

Japanese men are generally well behaved, at least when they are sober, but somehow the anonymity of the pressing crowd sometimes allows for unwanted physical intrusion. As a result, the Women Only rush hour car was created.

The trains are not always crowded. When it is more relaxed, passengers text message or surf the net from their cell phone, sleep or read. With long commutes and long hours, sleep is a popular option.

Jehane Joujaim (photo provided by event sponsor, Nokia)

I enjoyed sharing the day with women from around the world who are smart and beautiful and not afraid to look feminine. Among them, Queen Noor was a delight in both her demeanor and her shimmering turquoise gown. Meg Ryan, who is on the board of directors of the Pangea project, is eternally adorable.

Meg Ryan at Pangea Day in Los Angeles

I’ve not been in a men’s locker room but traveling with an otherwise all male management team might be similar to what it’s like. Their idea of entertainment was a stream of jokes taken at someone else’s expense.

Good wit is attractive to women and important in male hierarchical play.

One reason I fell in love with my husband was that I loved his way with words. I admire Ray’s humor because he is able to be very funny without resorting to being gross, vulgar or hurtful. I consider that evidence of his intelligence.

Apparently, I am not alone in being attracted to a man’s wit.

Whenever you look at on-line dating sites, you will see many references regarding good sense of humor (GSOH). But that doesn’t mean that men and women are looking for the same thing.

Women want a man who is a humor “generator,” while men seek a humor “appreciator.” (Eric Bressler, a psychologist at McMaster University in Canada)*

Geoffrey Miller theorizes that men learned to use humor and wit to attract a mate and perhaps to outsmart other men.*

Men and Women use humor differently

Jonny Goldstein replied to my April 8th post saying, “‘the arch enemy’ statement was definitely written twit in cheek!” Jonny, I was using your words to make my point about male competitive spirit, not to express hurt feelings. I very much appreciated the reminder that I wanted to write this post about gender differences and humor. Many thanks also to Tim who left an inspirational comment here on April 30th about “verbal jousting”.

Anything said when comparing men and women usually includes sweeping generalizations and certainly there are individual, cultural and demographic differences. But looking at some expert opinions, it would be worth considering:

“Men taunt other men with clever nicknames and insults. That isn’t something that women do. They don’t tend to play practical jokes, or engage in humor that humiliates or puts somebody down.” (John Morreal, a professor of religion at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, who has studied humor for 25 years.)*

“For women the primary goal of conversation is intimacy and, for men, the goal is positive self-presentation. Women’s humor supports a goal of greater intimacy by being supportive and healing, while men’s humor reinforces performance goals of competition, the establishment of hierarchical relationships and self-aggrandizement.” (from Mary Crawford’s book, Talking Difference on Gender and Language)

Many men can feel threatened by a woman with a sharp wit. However, men who do appreciate their female partner’s humor are usually more secure, mature and educated than average. (Don Nilsen, a linguistics professor and expert on humor)* I would add the same holds true for male appreciation of intelligent, successful women.

*Thanks to William Lawson who sourced the *’d experts for an article in Psychology Today.

There are fewer successful female stand-up comics

I know a lot of very funny female writers of books, columns, blogs etc and there are some great comedians but in general the number of men investing their time in being humorous, particularly stand-up is simply larger.

I think it could be explained by the two common goals of being funny: to joust with other men and to attract women.

Christopher Hitchens explains why he thinks “women aren’t funny” in a Vanity Fair article. I am not saying I agree with all his points but I thought it was worth including.

Jokes about the difference between men and women

No discussion about the gender differences in humor would be complete without at least one humorous reference to stereotypical differences between men and women. There are so many, here is one cute list and a sample:

Nicknames:
If Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose.
If Mike, Charlie, Bob and John go out, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Scrappy

Generational Differences in Humor

Do male teenagers use particularly aggressive humor? I should ask my friend, Vanessa Van Petten, author of Teens Today but I did pick up this amusing recent experiment.

As reported by the BBC, Sam Shuster observed hundreds of people while unicycling around Newcastle upon Tyne. He discovered that men made more jokes at him than women. He said the majority of male jokers were aggressive and mocking, while most women at most teased him with a smile. He found teenage boys to be particularly aggressive in their humor.

Is the Way Men and Women Use Humor Changing?

Political correctness and the evolution of the place in society of women and minorities may have affected how we use humor. As women become integrated into previously male domains, is the gender related use of humor changing? What have you noticed in your life?

From my personal experience, I have seen more thrill of competition in men than women.
This does not mean that women cannot be successful. Women can be and are very effective and successful. Amongst women executives I know well, it is more about personal excellence and doing our best and less about the thrill of competition. Personally, I enjoy winning a tennis game, but mostly I enjoy playing well. Watching men play tennis, for most it appears to be crucially important to win, even in the most casual of settings.

This is also a generalization but it seems to me that women try harder than men. We are the Avis of the sexes. This was the shared opinion of my Women on Top Japan group. Certainly for me, mastering Japanese after the age of 30 took a lot of “trying hard.”

When I am trying to accomplish something I have an “it’s never over till it’s over” attitude but I am only competing with a situation not with another individual.

Why are we different? Could it be linked to our hunter/gatherer beginnings?

The Rohit Bhargava Crowdsourcing Blogger Interview Contest
As many of you know, I participated in a blogger interview contest run by Rohit Bhargava who is using various types of crowdsourcing to promote his new book, Personality Not Included (PNI). Shashi Bellamkonda, one of my first TwitterBuds and a great supporter, suggested that I participate. He assured me that Rohit was worthy of the effort. I was pleased to be one of the 12 finalist interviews that Rohit selected from the 55 submitted when he set up the voting process. He presented the winners here.

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to come to my blog, read my interview and vote for me.

Rohit’s BrainStorming Breakfast
On April 5, following the Blogger Social launch night fest ending 3AM, Rohit gathered us at 9:30 AM to brainstorm follow-on promotional strategies for PNI. Women outweighed men in the gender ratio of those willing to drag themselves out of bed and keep their commitment to attend.

The Opportunity to Bring People to My Blog
I used this contest as an opportunity to introduce my new blog to friends I had not yet mentioned it to. I sent e-mails to some of my network in Japan, mostly those on LinkedIn and my Women on Top Japan group. I appealed to the group of Single Life Authors that I list in the “Authors We Love” on our Singelringen site. I also wrote to some of my Facebook friends. Finally I wrote to my Twitter Friends. As Blogger Social drew near I made new TwitterBuds with the participants. I included those that had followed me back. My message basically said: ‘Could you please read my interview and consider voting for me?’ As you might guess, jumping to a blog, scanning an interview and voting is something that TwitterBuds are most willing to do. For the average person, this is a big deal request, but on the other hand I was especially grateful for the comments from my non-Twitter friends who took the time to figure out how to leave a comment on my contest post.

The Voting Results
At the beginning, on Tuesday, April 1st, when I found myself getting a respectable number of votes, I was happy. I had told my friends, ‘I just want to make a decent showing amongst these respected and well-networked bloggers.’ I was not surprised that the highly networked Connie Bensen made an early surge to 24% of the votes. I was tied for second place when I got on the plane in LA to go to Blogger Social NYC Thursday morning, April 3rd (I never expected this). I felt so grateful to each person who had voted for me. When I arrived in NYC at 5PM I was shocked to find I was in first place with 21%. I stayed in first place through the night.

Competition is Like Crack?
In the morning of the final day of the contest, Friday, April 4th, I saw Jonny Goldstein’s “vote for me” avatar on Twitter and his Tweet saying, “@LindaSherman is a worthy competitor. It is going to be a long day” and I thought, “uh-oh.” Around noon Jonny suddenly surged from 19% to 34% and I thought, “that’s it, it’s over.” I hadn’t expected to win, so I was satisfied with a good showing. But after tasting a moment of special glory, I have to admit that falling to second place - with an unexpected voting gap like that - was rather a let-down. I had lunch with Shashi in NYC on the first day of the Blogger Social. Shashi happened to connect to Jonny Goldstein on the phone during lunch on another matter, and we thought it would be fun if I said “hello” to him. I said to Jonny, with honest intentions to save him some energy, ‘you can relax now, I am not spending any more time on this.’ I later saw him tweet, “I spoke on the phone to my ‘arch enemy’ Linda Sherman today.” Jonny wrote about “competition” several times including in his final summary of the process Jonny’s I won blog. He said, “As you can see, I poured quite a bit of energy into this contest. It reinforced for me the power of competition to drive engagement. It was like crack. I couldn’t stop.”

Competition can be looked at as a useful marketing tool for crowdsourcing exercises. Voting for user generated videos, such as Doritos’ Crash the SuperBowl contest; or for American Idol, are examples of the many opportunities to make use of crowds to generate both content and voting activity that create traffic to your brand.

What do you think about the thrill of competition, trying harder, and how it applies to men and women?

Update: Vanessa Van Petten kindly offered to guest blog this post on her popular Teens Today blog bringing me new readers including Tim “The Fool Man” who made a comment well worth reading below. Actually all of the comments for this post are great, so please take a look.

I am also very impressed with the way Rohit has put together his book launch for Personality Not Included, organizing bloggers to interview him for personal replies to each one. We had the opportunity to review his introduction before posing our questions. I was pleased to be part of what Geoff Livingston refers to as a noteworthy “crowdsourcing” process. I wanted to make my participation relevant to my blog so I created interview questions with an international perspective.

You can read all the great interviews that resulted from this very interesting process as well as Rohit’s introduction to Personality Not Included by clicking on the icon below. Please vote for the best interview (me! me! me!) here and here before Friday, April 4th, 9PM PST. Voting in both places has been blessed by Rohit. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Personality matters in your business. In preface to my questions, please let me share this excerpt from Rohit’s introduction:

The three hottest topics in business today are how to do more with social media (blogs, social networks, etc), using word-of-mouth marketing (the number one source of influence according to just about every international study), and interacting more authentically with customers. Personality is the theme that incorporates all of these topics.

Linda: In running subsidiaries of global companies, there is often discussion of tuning products for the local market. Certainly there are personalities that are strong enough to cross borders, but what did you learn about personality localization?

Rohit: You are right to point out that this is an important ingredient and it’s naive to believe that taking the same personality and rolling it out globally could work. Localizing personality comes down to finding the right individuals in every regional team and giving them to tools to craft the right personality and voice in their regions. The book offers a guide on how to do that which could be rolled out across different regions equally effectively.

Linda: Did you gather any stories for companies headquartered outside the USA?

Rohit: I did and I am really glad you asked this! Would you believe that in more than 50 interviews that I have done so far, you are the only one that asked about the international aspect of the book? I did spend quite a bit of time trying to get relevant examples from other countries because I see the global market for this book as a big opportunity. A few of the international brands I talk about in the book are Innocent Drinks (UK), Harry’s Cafe de Wheels (Australia), Moo.com (UK), Singapore Airlines (Singapore), and El Bulli (Spain). Many other brands I talk about are large global brands that are often struggling with exactly the issues you raised in your questions.

Linda: Customer service styles vary by country. In Japan B:B customer service is very personal and very expensive. Subsidiaries of foreign companies operating there have to play by the same rules. How do you see the ROI on this level of relationship based customer service and sales or the opposite end of the spectrum?

Rohit: Building a good relationship does take time. In my experience, I have found BtoB marketers to be the most accepting of this fact across the world. Japan may require more time and effort than many other cultures, but the idea of spending time to build an ongoing relationship is often a core concept that salespeople understand, but marketers have trouble with. The ROI of this type of effort can be huge because it is focused on a direct relationship and more broadly on word of mouth. Compare the “I” spent on this to the investment many brands make in useless television advertising destined to be ignored and you will understand how little this “I” really is. What if United airlines spent a fraction of their advertising budget for meaningless comic strip ads on building relationships with their key influencers?

Linda: Did you find any gender differences in your research? Obviously, there are personality differences between men and women. Can a corporate or brand personality be gender flavored? Should we match the gender of the personality to the bulk of the customer base?

Rohit: Another interesting question I haven’t heard before. I’m not sure that I saw a definite trend one way or the other when it came to gender and brands with personality. There was an obvious correlation with age (which will likely not be surprising), but gender was not an obvious factor in what I found. That said, there are certainly some brands and services that much more significantly target a certain gender because it is a core element of their personality. This is to be expected.

Linda: When will your book be available in other languages? Do you have a plan for which languages to introduce first?

Rohit: I have a large international publisher and so far that has paid off with publication rights already set in 8 countries and another 12-15 under negotiation. We have finalized translation rights for Chinese (Taiwan), Spanish, Russian and Thai. Another 8 or so languages are still under negotiation and all international versions should be out late this year.

Linda: I imagine that your employer Ogilvy is very happy about your book. Did they support you in any way to produce it? Will they be buying copies to give away to prospective and current clients?

Rohit: In terms of getting the book deal and contract, I did that on my own … but yes, the 360 Digital Influence team that I work in at Ogilvy was super supportive of my effort, letting me shift my working schedule to 4 days a week as I wrote the book. Now that I am moving into marketing and promotion, they have been brilliant, helping me to publicize the book, get media interested and coordinating events. I’m very lucky to work for an agency where I get to work on amazing projects, and get this kind of support for the book.

THURSDAY APRIL 3 | 6:00 PM
The Commonwealth Club
595 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

WOMEN WRITERS TELL ALL: SINGLE IN THE CITY
Sasha Cagen, Author, Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics
Jane Ganahl, Author, Naked on the Page: The Misaventures of My Unmarried Midlife
Wendy Merrill, Author, Falling Into Manholes: The Memoir of a Bad/Good Girl
Rachel Sarah, Author, Single Mom Seeking: Playdates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World
Jerusha Stewart, Author, The Single Girl’s Manifesta

The joys and challenges of single life are topic A for this panel of talented women writers. Men, single parenthood, dates from hell, aging, career and the myth of “having it all” - nothing will be off-limits! What does it mean to be an unmarried female today? How is it different than it was for our mothers? Can a woman find happiness living la vida sola? Of course! Come and find out how!

5:30 p.m. reception, 6pm program, 7pm booksigning | $12 members, $18 non-members, $7 students | Bookseller: Stacey’s Books

I am proud to say that all five of these lovely ladies wear Singelringen.

For Tickets and more information: tickets (choose date)