Another response to my Outlook on 2007 questions. This one from a truly fabulous young woman I am so proud to know - I would write about her every day, but... she'd be embarrassed.

Jory Des Jardins is a founding member of Blogher (you're going, right?) and writes the Pause blog - in a voice that is personal and professional, interesting and thought-provoking, and fun. That's one of the things that attracts me to Jory - she makes me smile.

Here are her answers to my Outlook on 2007 questions:

Yvonne: What surprised you about 2006?

Jory: Let me think here: I'd say that what really surprised me this year was how much interest there was around 1) bloggers and 2) women. One of the real differences at BlogHer 05 and BlogHer 06 were  the sponsors. We had companies like Yahoo! that supported the BlogHer community and did again in 06, but there were also companies such as GM, American Greetings, Johnson's Baby and Weight Watchers who were interested in the conference because they wanted to reach not just bloggers but Female Influencers.

There's a new marketing premium that companies place on women who influence other women. Alongside all of the data regarding the popularization of blogs was data about the power of the women online. Both forces seemed to converge this year.

Yvonne: What are you planning to do differently next year?

Jory: Next year... I'm planning to take better care of myself and to actually schedule 'do nothing' time into my week.