Editor’s Note: Lee Woodruff, New York Times bestselling author of In an Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing and Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress and wife of ABC’s Bob Woodruff, is mingling among 1,500 female bloggers at the fifth annual BlogHer ‘09 "In Real Life" conference. The four-day long event at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago aims to unite women who write and express themselves online. From up-and-coming Web editors to respected and established voices in media, all walks of cyberspace are brought together – in real life – through group workshops, parties and sponsored events. In the spirit of the engagement, Lee’s blogging for wowOwow … Click here to read more about Lee.

It’s only eight o’clock AM here but we’ve been up for four hours. It started with hair and makeup in my hotel room – a reunion with Stella and Vivian from Oprah’s show, who did my hair and makeup when Bob and I were on the show. An interview about BlogHer on WLS-TV and then ABC radio all before nine o’clock AM!

Chicago has decided to give us her best weather for today’s conference and you can feel the buzz here at the W Hotel and around the Sheraton where the conference is taking place. At dinner last night with the PepsiCo social media gurus we talked a lot about today’s Tweet Up and what some of these conversations will mean in the greater universe of blogging.

One thing I know is clear – women do look for ways to add more purpose to their already busy lives. One of the things that matters to them – despite the many hats they wear – is to find ways to participate, to give to the community, the school, help the less fortunate. One of the things I am interested in today during the PepsiCo Live With Purpose Panel is how the present economy is impacting the ways in which women choose to give with purpose. Are they donating less money but giving more hours? Are they encouraging their children or girlfriends to get involved in there causes.

What are some examples of social media being able to raise real funds or create some grassroots change? I know through my work with Remind.org and TweetToRemind.org that we have raised $150,000 since Memorial Day. This is all through social media. That speaks to the power of connections.

PepsiCo is hoping to try to quantify and analyze all the tweets to draw some global conclusions about how women are living with purpose. I can’t wait to read those findings. But this means we need people around the country to weigh in on Twitter live!

You can be part of the conversation and I encourage all wowOwow readers to participate in the conversation at 12:15 CPT by going to livewithpurpose.eventbrite.com, or on Twitter use the hashtag #livewithpurpose and tell us how you find purpose in your life.