Triangle Bloggercon: next steps

Feb 13, 2005

A fruitful brunch with Dave Winer this morning at Crook’s Corner (for my inaugural visit to that venerable restaurant, I ordered the french toast with strawberries and whipped cream). The conversation with Dave and Ruby and Bruce and Brian and a few others¹ helped me crystallize some ideas borne out of the bloggercon yesterday (Dave says yesterday’s conference didn’t make the cut, though he did graciously give us a B+ for our efforts).

The next steps:

A regular bloggers meetup is the crucial next step. Dave seconds the notion (and mistersugar makes a cameo). As noted below, I’ve arbitrarily set Wednesdays at 6 p.m. for a weekly Chapel Hill gathering (location to be determined tomorrow, with Caffe Driade the fallback). Any and all are welcome, with no prior blogging experience required. Open discussion. I’d like to include a short intro each week to one of the many blogging tools and CMSes available (I’ll start this week with an intro to Textpattern).

It makes sense to have a similar meetup in Durham and one in Raleigh/Cary. Those will come next/soon. (Andy Goldberg, who created Fuqua Journals over at Duke, was at the brunch; maybe he can spearhead a meetup on Ninth Street.)

Second, I’ll work to update my blogging101 tutorial this week. A number of people asked me about the tutorial this week, and I find others in my referrer logs each week. I’ll be adding podcasting, syndication, aggregation and more. Post your suggestions in the comments (the Storian link at bottom).

Third, more Triangle Bloggers Conference events to come in the next six months, as well as a challenge/support for taking the roadshow to Charlotte – AnonyMoses, we’re here to help.

Fourth, a service effort to bring blogging to the area’s senior citizens to give them a way to share their wisdom, experiences and memories.

As I said, a fruitful brunch. My thanks to Dave for facilitating the gathering.

¹ Brunch attendance: Bruce and Katy Loebrich, Andy Goldberg, Ruby Sinreich, Brian Russell, Michael O’Connell, Rob Zelt, Josh Staiger, Will R., Derek Lane, Dave Winer and Anton Zuiker (and one other whose name I didn’t catch).

Anton Zuiker ☄