Flickr Photo: kzarrr75I spent eight hours on the phone yesterday -- and I don't even have a headset. Though the pain in my neck was mighty by the end of the day, it was well worth it. The Women Who Tech Telesummit was a fantastic event!

My big takeaways:

1. Don't be afraid of the word "boobs".
2. You can build community in a virtual space if everyone is willing.
3. Our community is becoming much savvier about web based learning tools.

My first lesson of the day came from the second panel I attended, "Build an Online Campaign and Save the World." Farra Trompeter gave a case study from part of her NTC session on the "Not My Breasts" campaign run by the Breast Cancer Fund. I'm one of those people who tells other organizations to let go and have fun on the Internet -- to be irreverent and sassy. I know it's a strategy that can work in the right context.

But I'm also the kind of person who blushes when I hear the word "boob". That's why it was so great to hear this case study. The Breast Cancer Fund has not been known for its flip sense of humor, but they were brave, found an audience they wanted, and raised money they needed along the way.

As the day went on, I realized that something else really amazing was happening: people were using the chat box more, interacting more. And people were tweeting each other like crazy. Discussion was happening everywhere, even though practically nobody was in the same physical space. Does it help that lots of us actually HAVE met face to face? You bet. But there was real community building happening here.

Finally, I was really impressed by how easy it was to run five one-hour web conferences in one day. One of my roles was to run the logistics of the phone/web interface, along with my fearless colleague Anna. As you probably know, we love ReadyTalk. After I had it running for eight straight hours without a single problem, I love it even more! The best part was that the attendees seemed really comfortable with the technology, too. When we started our webinar program a few years ago, that definitely was not the case. We're glad to see the community is embracing it.

Oh, and if you're ready to embrace the word "boobs" too, here's my "Not My Breasts" badge.

I am protecting my boobs because they're what's between my head and my heart. I will save the world one breast at a time by getting outside.