A few disclaimers. 1) I didn't even know Microsoft was a sponsor of Kevin Werback's SuperNova conference before I accepted. 2) My boss would rather I stay home, do more videos, and didn't ask me to speak. 3) I accepted because I'll be in California anyway so it wouldn't cost me (or Microsoft or the Supernova conference) anything to speak.

The session I'm on is called "Business Blogging." Since I wrote a book on the topic and do a video blog for Microsoft Kevin asked me to speak.

But, I'm left scratching my head cause Marc asks Kevin to bring people I've already heard speak. OK, that's a mixed message! So, what is it? Do we want the same people again or not? Hmmm.

The thing is, known names sell tickets. In the 1990s I planned conferences and did a bit of research. If the list of speakers included lots of names that were recognizable the attendance was higher than if we included newbies. Hey, that's why I hired Dave Winer to speak (and Marc Canter too).

By the way, I've been at dozens of conferences in the past few years and on that list I've never heard most of these people speak.

Oh, and if you want to hear people you've never heard speak before you should go to the Blogher conference. Maryam is speaking there for the first time. I'll be an attendee. To be fair Marc attended that last year.

Update: 1/3rd of the speakers at Supernova this year are women. That's much higher than at other industry conferences I've been at this year (only BlogHer is higher). Also, Marc Canter spoke at Supernova last year. Dave Winer spoke at the first one.

I'm particularly looking forward to Amy Jo Kim's session at SuperNova. She spoke at SXSW and got rave reviews (I missed that one but heard people talking about it in the hallways).