mistersugar: Bloggercon (takes) off

Bloggercon (takes) off

Don’t take my word on the apparent success of the Triangle Bloggers Conference – read what the participants say (Bora’s got a more comprehensive list). When critical, remarks are constructive. I like that.

As for me, I’m awed and honored and satisfied. One hundred and twenty smart, driven, expressive individuals gathered and conversed for a few hours, eager to share their experiences and knowledge and willing to listen to other voices.

I’m not sure that the conference, with so many people and so little time, dug too deeply into the issues; this was more of a broad sweep of the topics and trends. But a lot of people expressed their gratitude for the gathering, and what I observed was that they were happy to see, and hear, and meet writers and bloggers and media subjects that they’ve been paying attention to through the years. Dave Winer and Rafe Colburn finally meeting is just one example, and I’m sure we’ll be able to point to other examples as more bloggers post their estimations of the conference. For me, the same: my mentor John Ettorre was there, and my college buddy Mark Schreiner, my teachers Paul Jones and Phil Meyer, and many bloggers I admire, including Justin Watt, Ed Cone, Eric Muller, Ruby Sinreich and Henry Copeland. Certainly it was nice to meet Dave Winer and Dan Gillmor, as well as a hundred other interesting and intelligent people. If you’re reading this and you were one of them, thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you.

Damn. What a day.

I joked in my welcome remarks that people should silence their cell phones, else my mom would be calling them to check up on me. I made sure to call my mom soon after the conference to tell her how well the day had gone, because I knew she’d be proud of me. She taught me a valuable lesson one day during my freshman year of high school. I was moping in my loneliness, and mom told me the best way to remedy waiting by the phone for some friend to call was to pick up the phone (my great fear) and call a friend with an invitation to get together. Just do it, as Nike would suggest. That’s what I did in an e-mail message on December 23rd, and that’s why I found myself before 120 people this morning.

Let me do it again.

I promised the crowd I’d coordinate a regular bloggers meeting. No sense waiting, so I’ll put out the plan now: starting next Wednesday, let’s gather each Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Caffe Driade on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. An open meeting. Come talk about whatever’s on your mind and in your blog.

I’m also mulling on an idea for a follow-up conference (inspired by a conversation with Cathy Resmer, who traveled 1000 miles to join us today, and by conference feedback by Ruby) that would turn the tables and accomplish some of the community building conversation we didn’t get to today: a Triangle Community Organizing Conference (that’s a mouthful; need better name) for community activists, non-profit organization program managers and civic leaders to learn how to use online tools such as blogs and wikis to attract supporters and spark action. Post your suggestions in the comments, please.

More tomorrow, surely …

AFTERTHOUGHT: Erin was just joking with John about my past suggestions that, should I suddenly die, Erin should post a simple message to my blog to let my online community know of my passing and how they might respond. This isn’t meant to be morbid, but we have been talking about buying life insurance since I’ll be the sole income-generator in our family when Erin starts law school this fall. That got me to thinking about the end of mistersugar. Let me be clear – there are no plans for that to come soon. I’ll continue my blog for as long as I can.

One of the more commented-on statements of the bloggercon was Dave Winer’s rhetorical “Why do you care how many people are reading your blog?” More than a few bloggers seem to agree with that sentiment, which seems disingenous or naive to me. If you truly write a blog for yourself, password protect it and don’t let me see it. I write The Coconut Wireless mainly to express myself and sharpen my writing skills, and I see it as a personal journal that I leave open on the coffee table for anyone to read – I do care about how you connect to my weblog.

Is it wrong for me to want this weblog to have a legacy?

the wee hours on 02/13/05 in "Blogging" | permalink

What I took away from Dave’s comment was not the literal interpretation of “we should only be concerned with blogging for ourselves”, but rather that we should be careful not to take a short-sighted/shallow view with respect to the content we’re generating.

Writing with the sole intention of getting people to link to you may get you traffic a lot of traffic in the short term, but is the content that you’re generating really as useful as it could be? Would someone searching google five years from now really find this to be useful or informative?

Which site gets more hits nowadays, the belly-up dotcom that spent millions on advertising on the 90s to drive traffic to their site or Philip Greenpun’s homepage, which is filled with fantastic content?

If a legacy is what you’re looking for then focus generating good content that people genuinely want to read, not content that people just happen to read because it got linked to. Through the magic of the longtail the cream will eventually rise to the top.

On the other hand, a point that Sid Stafford was trying to make was that great content doesn’t do any good if it never gets written because the author doesn’t think that anyone is reading.

So as with most things, balance is the key.
— Josh Staiger on Feb 13, 11:46 PM #

Thank you. It was a blast. Wednesday nights are generally good for me so I will try to make it. I am assuming that folks in Raleigh, Cary and Durham are going to suggest to rotate the location so it is not alway them who have to get into their cars and drive over here, while we walk over in our pajamas. I have no problem with that.
— coturnix on Feb 13, 10:31 PM #

Tom King understands what I was doing. We were stuck, or so I thought, and spiraling downward. The next question was “How can you tailor what you say to get the maximum flow.”

One should always be reviewing why you’re doing something, because it’s possible, even easy, to get off track. If we blog to help disseminate truth, and if we succeed at doing that, nothing else really matters, right?

And as I said, I am a total link whore, and I get upset when someone takes an idea from my site and uses it without attribution. But, well, keep the eye on the prize, I like to remind myself.

Sylvia Paull who has known me for 25 years, wrote a quick guide to Dave. Basically I am the minority report, the contrarian, the iconoclast, the person who doesn’t mind saying we’re all full of shit, and none of us gets out of this alive. ;->
— Dave Winer on Feb 13, 05:54 PM #

So you mean it? If I show up at Caffe Driade Wed night I won’t be all by myself feeling stupid?

Melinama
— Jane Peppler on Feb 13, 03:50 PM #

Dear Anton,
Thanks for a riveting time, and at the moments where we could not delve deeper, I still believe most folks were happy to be in a room with like-minded people discussing the vagaries of blogging. TriBlogCon was definitely a success.

I want to echo what Tim King said above. I thought Dave Winer’s question was, in part, a continuation on Ed Cone’s “what kind of blog do you want to have?” challenge. For some of us, myself included, readership is not so much the point, because we’re still defining what kind of blog we have or, as Tim said above, still generating the sort of content worthy of eyeballs. Of course if someone strolls in and, better yet, says hello, it’s wonderful, but in one’s early days it seems the desire is good content first, publicity later. Personally, I’m not even close to figuring out what I want to do with my blog and to whom I want to connect.

Thanks again, and congratulations on picking up that phone and giving us a call. It worked beautifully. I look forward to being able to join you at Caffe Driade soon.
— ae on Feb 13, 10:33 AM #

Anton – First thank you for taking on the task of facilitating so much sharing. I truly enjoyed the TBC, and will benefit from it endlessly.

When Dave Winer said “Why do you care how many people are reading your blog?” I had to smile. As I recall, the discussion to that point had been working earnestly toward how to drive such readership activity, and seemed to have hold on the imagination of the room. I actually took Dave’s question as an iconoclastic tweak at the moment, a contemplative break, and a sort of minority report. Whether he meant it that way or not, that’s how I took it.

In retrospect, it did spark in me the question of content, which for me is a much bigger concern than readership. In the margins of the conference I found a number of people, including myself, who expressed doubts about what they had to share as content. Readership seemed a distant concern.

I think Dave’s question is an essential one, and for me – I want the answer to be because I have something to share, and perhaps if I, like you, have something to share – readership will not be a problem.

Clearly you have something to share.
— Tim King on Feb 13, 09:47 AM #

Yes. I’ll post links on my blog as well as on the conference wiki. I’ve seen two podcasts posted on other blogs already.
— Anton Zuiker on Feb 13, 09:31 AM #

Could you post where and when videofeed and podcast will be online? I know a couple people here in GSO that didn’t get to go and wish to watch/listen to it. Thanks.
— Ben on Feb 13, 09:17 AM #

Anton Zuiker's personal website and home of the Coconut Wireless weblog

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