BlogHer and BlogHers will once again descend on Austin, TX to participate in SXSW Interactive.

This year we had to cut back our participation to two sessions, rather than last year's five (there's a little thing called BlogHer Business going on that same month, after all!) But we're excited about those two sessions:

Saturday, March 10th: 10:00-11:00AM

World Domination via Collaboration

Description: This is Round 2 of a session we brought to last year's Web 2.0 Conference, described as follows: Many companies focus on building community to “leverage” it, skipping a crucial step: Collaborating with users to build a product or experience that dominates the market because it's great. It is possible to strike that balance: Building community, maintaining credibility, meeting organizational objectives. Meet company leaders whose models are steeped in user collaboration.

This session features the following panelists:
Moderator: Jory Des Jardins, BlogHer
-Betsy Aoki, who has managed both developer and user communities for Microsoft.
-Jessica Hardwick, CEO of SwapThing...whose very business model is based on trust and community.
Lisa Stone, who wrangles our very own BlogHer community.
Jenna Woodul, who has helped many large consumer -focused companies introduce community into their more traditional web environments in her role as co-founder of LiveWorld.

Sunday, March 11th: 11:30AM-12:30PM

Non-developers to open source acolytes: tell me why I care

Description: While open source and open standards are like a religion to many in the tech world, many of us who are non-developer technology consumers do not understand how it impacts us. So: tell us why we should care? Why should we care about using open source tools, such as browsers, when free proprietary alternatives also exist? Why should we care if iTunes only works with an iPod? Check out this debate between some open source and standards advocates and some devil's advocates..and figure out if you care.

This session features the following panelists:
I will be moderating, and yes, this is one of my favorite topics. I'll be joined by:

-Dawn Foster, director of community and partner programs at Compiere, an open source ERP/CRM software company and open source blogger.
-Annalee Newitz, journalist, author, pop culture maven, she-geek extraordinaire.
-Erica Rios, who is overseeing a massive web site re-design and technology upgrade at the Anita Borg Institute, and ended up successfully making the case to management for both open source and proprietary tools.

So those are the two official BlogHer sessions. In case you were there last year, I hear this year he's learned his lesson and will have microphones strategically placed for the audience, so interactive sessions like ours can be better heard and more easily participated in by all.

In addition to our sessions there are tons of other women speaking at SXSW. As we've mentioned repeatedly, organizer Hugh Forrest walks his talk about getting diverse speakers and perspectives to SXSW.

Check out this list of speakers and you will see a host of familiar BlogHer names, including:

danah boyd
Heather Champ Powazek
Amanda Congdon
Laina Dawes
Virginia DeBolt
Zadi Diaz
Asha Dornfest
Tracey Gaughran-Perez
Eileen Gittins
Anastasia Goodstein
Kaliya Hamlin
Liz Henry
Mary Hodder
Ryanne Hodson
Marrit Ingman
Lynne d Johnson
Jan Kabili
Maninder Kahlon
Min Jung Kim
George Oates
Liza Sabater
Carmen Van Kerckhove

Sorry if I missed anyone...it's a looong list.

Feel free to promote your session, including its day and time and description, in the comments below.