Yes! Thank you for complaining about the baby - WHAT THE HECK? It is hard enough for bloggers to be taken seriously without acting unprofessional and bringing an infant to a business conference.

get a life - you dont know her situation, and the baby didn't do anything to you - it wasnt crying or bothering you in any way. Don't be such an ahole - try being nice.

Finally, the first pissed off anonymous reply...that actually took longer than I thought.

"Get a life" :) Nice, it's been a long time since I have heard that. And actually, it did bother me..if not I wouldn't have posted about it.

Glad to see at least one person agrees that it isn't cool to bring a baby (thanks Diane), I figured I was going to get pummeled when I made this post.

Hey annonymous - at least he didn't call anyone an ahole. Who's the ahole now?

At $1,000 per blogger, the organizers should have a hall monitor to handle those that have spent way too much time in front of a monitor and are just socially inept. Throw them out until they can behave.

Aw, that baby was freakishly quiet all day long. I might agree with you if there was distracting crying going on, but she had things under control. We're all so busy collectively basking in the glow of our laptops I'm surprised anyone even registered the baby's presence in a negative way.

When I was in college, I had a professor who had a very even-tempered infant daughter. She had a major snafu with her child care situation for a couple of weeks and had to bring her to work with her. She would teach the class with her little girl curled up in a snuggly. The baby never fussed or disrupted the class. It was fine, and we all found it acceptable and professional on her part. She had the situation under control.

I understand that some people would find an infant out of place at a business conference, just as some would find one out of place in a college classroom. We provided the woman in question with a special soundproof room where she can sit and still watch the speakers if her baby does make a fuss.

We encourage everyone to take a live and let live approach on this one. If the baby disturbed your experience of the conference in any way, we want to know about it. Otherwise, please try tor remember that you don't necessarily know the attendee in question's situation.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate your opinions.

Teresa, thanks for explaining the situation and the accommodations that you made. That is certainly nice of you - most conferences do not allow children at all and giving parents with children a place to enjoy the conference where they won't distract others is awesome. More conference should do the same.

I do want to point out that I wouldn't have made a post if I didn't find the situation distracting. I know that others have not been distracted but for some reason people seem to think that I am just being an "ahole" and wasn't genuinely distracted. If you are asking me to understand people’s situations, but you don’t seem interested in understanding other people’s situations, you might want to reevaluate your stance. Is it so hard to believe that some people might be more sensitive to distractions than others?

Since some seem skeptical, the place where I found the baby distracting was in the smaller conference room yesterday and during that session the baby was being burped. The mom was smacking the baby on the back and the baby was making noise. Once again, this isn't really so much about babies at conferences, it is about courtesy. If you were sitting in a conference and the guy sitting next to you kept slapping the person next to him on the back, wouldn't you find it a little rude? I know I would.

And one more time. I have nothing against mothers, babies, mothers with babies, babies with mothers, etc. I know a lot of bloggers out there feel an overwhelming sense of glee when they get to attack someone saying something about babies or working moms or whatever. Please, lets not play that game. I am talking about being courteous to your fellow attendees, nothing more.

I find it interesting that people are only taking issue with the baby situation and not the cell phones or the guys who were talking. Seems that no one disagrees those distractions were, at least to some extent, rude. Am I missing something? (serious non-rhetorical question here)

So what did these people say when you politely told them, "Hi, I'm finding it hard to hear the presentation. Would you mind taking your call/conversation/baby burping into the hallway?"?

You, uh, did say that, right?

And the baby has been really quiet today - I hardly noticed they were here. It was yesterday that he was fussy, especially in the afternoon. I noticed some of the speakers glanced that way a couple of times as well.

Congrats on the controversy, James! It wouldn't be a proper blogger's conference without someone flaming someone else!

Actually, you're right. I didn't ask them to stop what they were doing because, quite truthfully, I would be uncomfortable doing so. I guess this might be a personality flaw on my part, since I am not one to get directly into a stranger’s face in a crowded room and ask them to correct their behavior. I guess I am just not that bold...it's sort of like leaving anonymous snaky comments on people's blogs :)

My post was to vent my frustration, because the situation was bugging me. I thought the organizers were missing the mark on crowd control, but I realize now (thanks to Teresa) that they went out of their way to accommodate everyone, which is awesome (really awesome). And the fact that they seem to be proactive about things like cell phones today shows that they are really trying.

I guess the whole post was similar to when you are driving and get cut off. You might think about getting out of your car and telling the other driver what is wrong about their driving, but most likely you won't. If you are still fired up later in the day you just might tell a friend about it or blog about it. And usually after you do that, you feel better. I wasn’t trying to flame – just venting. Let’s not start calling it Babygate yet.

Alright - ready for the next sassy comment. Ready? GO!

I did want to clarify one factual point: the conference organizers bear no responsibility for this situation. I only registered at the very last minute so didn't forewarn them that I'd be coming with a baby, so they never had a chance to head this off at the pass (whether they'd want to or not, I have no idea). Despite the lack of notice they've done a terrific job making it possible for me to feel comfortable and minimize the intrusion by retreating to a quiet room. I can't imagine any conference team doing a better job of handling this challenge.

Thanks for your comment Alexandra. I am starting to really feel like an ahole now :) - especially after reading your post about traveling with a baby. If I have caused you any more trouble than you already are going through, I am sorry about that. I don't know your situation and I should think a little more when I vent online. Since hardly anyone usually reads my blog I figured it would be me venting and not much more. Again, Alexandra, sorry.

Thanks for the apologies, James, and no worries. My mom is actually totally rabid on the subject of babies in public places, so I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. That said I'm always trying to optimize my public-management-of-baby skills, so I'll add baby-thwacking to the list of activities best done outside the room.

I think what it really comes down to is that a baby is a lot more incongruous in this setting than a cell phone or a computer. What's more, it hits on some very charged social issues surrounding women, motherhood and work.

What we want to make sure of is that everyone is comfortable.

And Alexandra, I want to add that Jonah has been a real joy. He's adorable and very, very even-tempered. I hope that he continues to possess this trait as he grows. This world can be so flustering, it's good that he keeps his cool so well.

ooh, and one final point.

If we'd known in advance that someone was bringing a baby, we would have huddled up and probably agreed to let the mom with the kiddo come along, provided that he's as well-behaved as Jonah. Also, we would want to be able to check ahead of time that the venue had a quiet room like the Bell Harbor does with the Bay Auditorium.

Some advice for moms that want to do this in the future: let us know in advance. We'll figure out the best possible way to accommodate your needs.

I totally agree with you Teresa - certainly incongruous - certainly socially charged.

I kinda figured I was walking into a s--- storm on this one and in retrospect I should have waited a little bit before hitting the publish button. Ah well, live and learn. There is a reason this blog is called Marketing Punk and not Marketing Genius.

I sat right behind Alexandra and her adorable baby in the session on building communities online and I was very distracted by the feeding and burping. I think in a small room like that, where people are packed in like sardines, I would prefer there be no babies...not even sleeping ones. I had no problem with the baby being in the large conference room.

Since I'm not a mother and I'm not around babies a lot, I find their presence to be more distracting than cell phones going off, which is something I'm used to. But that's just me!

Cousin Jimbo - How are you??? Hope you enjoy the boot! Ha! I hear lots of great things are going on in your life. I still remember you jumping off of the furniture with your Superman cape...now you're all grown up with a real job, blog, and girlfriend. Very cool :-) You and Stella should come visit Daniel and I in NYC! Kathryn