The folks who organized Johnson & Johnson's Camp Baby pulled out all the stops for the 55 blogging women who attended.
The flew us out to a top-notch business hotel near the headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They wined and dined us. They showered us with some amazing swag (from the inevitable products -- which I, for one, will be using -- to goodies from co-sponsor Nintendo). And they obviously gave a lot of thought to the program they presented: we heard from medical doctors, who offered insight into child development and health issues (and yes, there was some selling of J&J's image and products, but that was to be expected).
All in all, it was a heroic effort to begin a dialogue between the blogging community and one of the world's foremost manufacturers of health, medical and cosmetic products. But it will probably be remembered most for the afternoon breakout session with the horrifying title: "Girl Talk: 'What's Happening Down There?'"
"Down There" does NOT refer to Australia or New Zealand. No, this session was led by two very earnest urogynecologists, and promised to be a discussion "that touches upon myths, the body and ways to help women with bladder and other 'down there' related changes after giving birth."
It's an embarrassing topic that makes most women uncomfortable, and I would hope that the two female medical doctors who chose this as their specialty understood that. Most of us went into the session with a feeling of dread, and that was even after we'd experienced the scary germ doctor who informed us that fecal matter is EVERYWHERE.
I wish I could say I behaved in a manner befitting the wisdom and experience I have accrued in my 50+ years on this planet, but that would be a lie. Instead, I (and most of my colleagues), behaved like 12-year-olds. I was as giggly, gawky and grossed out as I'd been in sex education class, back in the early '70's.
The hotel is one big wi-fi hotspot, and J&J encouraged us to blog the event, so most of us hid behind our laptops as the doctors went over the parts of female anatomy that can be weakened through changes wrought by pregnancy, childbirth and age. And most of us (who are on Twitter) tweeted through the whole thing with rude comments to one another about bladder leakage, fecal incontinence and Kegel exercises. (I know. I am saying "Ewwww" right now, as I type this up.)
It occurred to us that Twittering during a lecture is the modern day equivalent of passing your friends a note in class. Except that the world beyond the room (at least, the ones who are following your Twitter stream) can see everything you are saying. And the tweets coming from that room were um, hysterical.
The funniest part of all this is that as the good doctors went on (at one point, they told us to think of the room we were in as a big uterus and imagine the ceiling dropping in on us, and that is what a hernia would be like) and we tweeted, and we joked... and most of us gained several new followers. (For that, I must publicly thank Erin, the "Queen of Spain", who listed all of our Twitter identities to her followers.) To all my new friends: I seriously doubt that you will ever read the words "vagina," "pelvic floor" or "peeing" in my Twitter stream again.
By the time we'd finished that session and were safely ensconced in the final breakout (where some nice ladies were trying to teach us about styling our girl children's hair), we were giddy, tired and impossible. The room was strewn with giant Barbie heads (you know, the kind your little girl uses to play hair dresser), and we could no longer focus. It had been a long day, with few breaks and we were tired.
We'd managed a second wind for dinner at a very swanky restaurant, where the Nintendo folks set up Wii's for us to play (including the Fit, reviewed here last month). While there, I had a nice conversation with one of the PR ladies who helped Johnson and Johnson plan the event. We talked about the challenges of working within the ever-changing world of social media, and how it differs from traditional media. We also touched upon the lack of diversity among this event's participants, which many of us found strange -- especially when we learned that Johnson & Johnson's President of Baby Care is an African-American woman. The publicist I talked to -- who is also African-American -- said that they had hoped for a more diverse group, but that the ethnicity of bloggers isn't often apparent from their writing. I got the feeling that she was sincere... and that they will try harder next time.
And I hope there is a next time. I think that -- despite the grousing, the skepticism and the rude Twitter tweets -- most of us are walking away with a better understanding of one another. And if that was the company's goal, I think it's been achieved.
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