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Post-BloggerCon Observations

My friend and fellow blogger Keith Povall of The UK (with a recently updated post no less, go read it!) was astounded that I would spend part of a weekend attending a conference on blogs, or blogging. He sent me an e-mail questioning the very concept or purpose of a Blogger Conference.

Dean,

I read your blog. I am distressed and dismayed...

You were planning to spend all Sunday at a bloggers convention ?

I have looked at many other blogs and in most cases one paragraph of words makes no sense at all, let alone a complete journal. Otherwise, it is juvenile private mutterings which mean something only to the writer and their peer group.

And so, I wonder about the point of these blogs ?

When I write something, I want it to appeal to a general audience and give a flavour of what goes on in my life.

Whatever the point of these journals, I can not for the life of me understand why anyone would want to organise a meeting of these people, let alone attend?

Keith seems to think that blogs are pigeon-holed, that the whole of all blogs boils down to personal journals. If that were the case, only LiveJournal would be necessary.

While it is true that a good many blogs are purely of the personal journal/diary sort, there are many other uses. There is blogging as a form of Journalism, as opposed to the personal journal. There are business blogs, blogs running on intranets as a dynamic method of multi-user collaborative interaction. There are blogs devoted to specific interests and paths of study.

At BloggerCon there were three tracks devoted to specific non-personal blogging pursuits: medical blogging, political blogging, and spiritual blogging. The Cluetrain session and Halley Suittís ìBlogger In Their Midstî session addressed business issues.

A look at the BloggerCon schedule grid offers more detail (and links for more info).

Blogging is much more than the keeping of on-line diaries. As I said in this space just before BloggerCon, I see this blog serving as my own column of sorts. Yes, there are personal elements, and surely there are opinions to be found. The blog as a soapbox, a place of public expression, a manner of publishing or netcasting, using a blog as a column or an airing (ìblogcastingî) space.

Blogs serve many varied purposes and intents.

Look at my blogroll ("Deanís List," directly to your right, the blue sidebar) ñ what do you see? Blogs of a general nature, blogs of a political nature, and a slew of Baseball Blogs (to me, of course, those qualify as being of a religious nature).

BloggerCon explored many aspects. The Aggregator session was of great interest to me. Having limited tech chops (which is actually being somewhat generous!), it is only recently that I discovered the URL to use for my RSS feed. And big thanks go to Lawrence Lee of Userland for enabling me to get it on the homepage of DeanLand.

During a session filled with attendees who seemed to speak fluent geekdomese, there were some heady discussions about the practical application of RSS, what and how one uses it, and so forth. One attendee (too far on the other side of the room for me to identify, or Iíd give him credit where due!) noted that the average non-geek user may be a little confused. ìNormal People,î he said, ìas opposed to most of the people in this roomî --that got a big laughó ìmay not follow the concept or application of RSS. How do mainstreamers deal with it, if we in this room have all these issues?î

I raised my hand and spoke up. Representing the ìnormal people wing of the Blogging Party,î I noted how incredibly daunting this whole shebang is to the non-tech type. I am a writer, a marketer, a communications professional. Not a developer or a code writer, not a tech-savvy weblogger. And the RSS thing is completely Greek to me. There is the orange button that says XML. Then thereís the orange button that says RSS. Then there are a few more with coffee cup icons. And there are seemingly related buttons with acronyms like SOAP and OPMD. Yikes, some of them even show the same URL over there on the bottom of the screen when one hovers the mouse over these radio buttons.

Confusing as this may be, it gets even worse! Go to the documentation for assistance, and it is written in Swahiligeek. Userlandís documentationís first step instructs the reader to ìcallî a certain URL. CALL IT? How? On my cell phone?

Simple and obvious though this may seem to some, a writer/marketer/communicator such as yours truly finds himself totally lost. I like to think I am an intelligent fellow. My strengths are not in technical areas. I am an applications guy, not a developer. So when I attempt to deal with most blogging tools documentation, it can be an initmidating task. The instructions presuppose that I am technically adept, or at least learned in the ways of writing or coding my blog.

Jon Udell, leading the Aggregator session, summed up my comments by characterizing what Iíd said by saying ìso what youíve described here is what is technically known as a train wreck!î

It got a laugh from the room, but it also made a key point. User-friendliness and introduction of tools on an ìaverage Jane and Joeî level is, of course, a necessity. This A-List develop and blog-world assemblage of tech types may have benefited from hearing a ìreal world bloggerî express the frustrations one encounters with tools designed for A-List Tech Types.

This, I think is one of the benefits of the BloggerCon meeting. There were many developers and technologists at the Aggregator session. There were also geeks, and there were people who put these things together. For this heady and intelligent group to get a firsthand user's pointof view can only be a good thing. I also received a number of very kind offers from people who were willing to walk me through the process, and explain it to me in laymanís terms.

The bottom line at BloggerCon 2003, what made it special, and a success, boils down to a number of things. It was collegial, it was not at all commercial, it was a class act. Dave, ever the evangelist for blogging as a concept, a tool, a communications medium, was the perfect host. And his role was indeed, that of host.

In the academic environment of Harvard, with sessions in classrooms and small lecture facilities, made for exellent conference ambience. I just wish Dave & company had given out post-conference certificates. Then I could always brag about my post-graduate work (and look, a diploma!) at Harvard.

The conference can surely be expanded in some ways. Dave is correct in his thinking that commercializing it would turn the conference into just another commercial venture, posing as a purposeful conference.

Suggestions:

A Shmoozatorium. A designated space, with close proximity to the meeting rooms, to serve as a Shmoozatorium for the attendees. The small hallways in Pound Hall made for some difficulty in getting to the elevator as a plethora of side conversations and mini-meet-ups occurred between the sessions. The lack of a specific hangaround Shmoozatorium location meant improvising on the spot, and cutting short some conversation, as the ambience in the hallways was that of enabling traffic flow, not encouraging one-on-one or small group interactions.

Longer lunch breaks! Note in the discussion posts over at the BloggerCon Site (which continue, even after the concerence, making this an event that becomes a lasting entity) that Dave seeks feedback and suggestion. Note, also, over at Scripting News, Daveís observation that the lunch break was too brief. So brief, in fact, that many were late in getting to the afternoon sessions after the lunch break.

This again addresses the desire of the BloggerCon participants to engage in conversation, spend some time, get to know each other and have dialogue. The assembled Bloggers, perhaps by nature, seem a social and interactive, inquisitive group. And an excited group, by the looks of, as much animated conversation was to be seen, as well as hearing over and over that Blogger A was so happy to finally meet Blogger B, who it turns out reads Blogger Aís blog on a regular basis, too . . . and so on and so forth.

Room Mikes! When there was Q & A or other attendeee participation, often the people on one side of the room were unable to hear the questions or comments. The air conditioning on one side of some of the rooms emitted some white noise that obviated hearing anything uttered on the other end of the room. The acoustics in most of the rooms, are designed for the center speaker position to have the best projection; those on the sides are not in an acoustical position to be heard throughout the rest of the room. A crowd mike (ok, call it a room mike) held by a BloggerCon Room Aide (nb: thatís another suggestion, Wendy & Dave) could be passed around, to the benefit of all involved, including those watching on the webcasts.

There are a number of pros and cons to adding commercial elements to the conference. The main argument on the con side is this: commercialization will dilute the focus, and eventually minimize the core purpose to the point that the conference becomes just one of a zillion meetings, with booths and speakers representing the sponsors, and commercial politics getting in the way of some other speakers or participants, and so forth. Also, BloggerCon, under the auspices of The Berkman Center and Harvard Law School, may be held to certain specific non-commercial or non-profit restrictions.

On the pro side there are many opportunities: More scholarships and a lower tuition fee. Many were reluctant to fork over $500 for Day One. In this moment of Dubyanomics, $500 goes a long way toward food, clothing and shelter. A spare $500 for a non-essential expenditure is not so easy in the current economic environment.

Limiting the sponsorship offerings and maintaining the conference integrity is a tough task. Not an impossible one, but a tricky trail to maneuver. Here are some thoughts:

A BloggerCon Bag, given out at registration. It would have the eventís logo, and also the name of the sponsor who paid for the bags. The bagís sponsor and the bagís contents (each item a paid-for bag-element) would be subject to approval by a committee.

Note Pads (in the bags and on the desks at the sessions) could be supplied by a paying sponsor. Just as hotels have logo-pads by the house phones and in the rooms, the conference could have a note-pad for the event, with a sponsor name on the top or bottom of each page.

Other Innocuous Bag Stuffers. Pens, CD Roms, coupons for a local pizza joint or Chinese restaurant, the usual goodies.

I would recommend against cocktail parties or specific conference events being underwritten. That crosses a certain line in the sand, and might connote more than a paid sponsorship . .. perhaps giving an impression of an association or endorsement. Further, the sponsors able to fund such conference sponsorship opportunities would likely be the ones to seek such perceived associative connotation.

I didnít see a Press Room at the conference. Of course, at a meeting such as BloggerCon, where there were almost as many laptops as attendees, might not require a specific Press area. As BloggerCon grows, there is no doubt that various news sites, magazines, newsletters, and other entities of distributed content will want to attend and report on the event. It might be an interesting idea to offer sponsorship of a Press Room.

The good news about sponsorships for BloggerCon is that it need not be a for-profit endeavor. It can remain a class act, as opposed to the various vendor conferences or subject-specific meetings, that end up being vendorfests.

Many trade magazines and industry groups will ìthrow a conferenceî in order to generate revenues. They sell the bag, sell the keynote speaker position, sell sponsorship of nightly parties and lunches, sell the between-session refreshment-and-finger-food-snack tables, sell ads in a program publication given out at the event, et al.

The problem with these sort of sponsorships is the side issue of politics and control. Major company X, sponsoring some element of a conference, may threaten to withdraw support in the event that a speaker or sponsor from competitive company B should participate. Or Company C may only sponsor some large-ticket conference element if a quid pro quo puts their chairman or big macher (alternative translation here)as the keynote speaker.

Much to Daveís credit, it seems a sure thing that he will allow none of these nefarious sort of inveiglements to taint BloggerCon in the future. There is, though, an opportunity to offer some limited sponsorship association with the conference, while maintaining the necessary integrity.

Just as was heard in a good many conversations (and repeated often by yours truly): open source is a good thing, as is finding a way to make lots of money. And it can be done by the same entity. A prime example is Red Hat. One can download many Redhat product offerings for free. Want or need special help, add-ons or enhancements ... buy those from Redhat.

BloggerCon can remain a non-affiliated event ñ no endorsements of products or sponsors ñ while offering some commercial venues within the scope of the event.

Sponsorships, or marketing & sales opportunities within the conference need not become catalysts (or indications) of the total sellout or commercialization of an event. Look at Googleís advertising methodology. It remains tasteful, does not get in the way, and does not (IMHO) detract from what Google is or how users benefit from it.

This brings to mind the concept (in some cases the fear or supposition) that all sponsorship or advertising is bad. Well, if that is the case, is it bad to make money? Of course not! One can make money and still be doing the right thing. This is part of the entire Open Source argument. It is a narrow-minded self-righteousness that dismisses all commercial endeavors in one fell swoop. To broadly dismiss such moves as bad, unrighteous, or somehow piggish, is a form of bias, and evidences narrow-mindedness and perhaps a lack of depth.

One can earn scads of money, and if they choose, use it to do good. Or to enrich the lives of their loved ones. Perhaps both. Perhaps just to earn it to hoard it. These are personal choices. It is not my place or anyone elseís to judge the righteousness of commercial endeavors on a general basis. What one chooses to do with oneís riches is a different issue. How one garners those riches is a different issue.

Commercial endeavors in a Capitalist society are actually a necessity. One could make the flimsy argument that having a job ñfor which one earns an income and thus generates some money in the form of salary and possibly bonuses, as wellóis somehow also not righteous. It would be a poorer world if everyone was doing missionary or other such work, and all those not involved in work of a righteous order were somehow cast as evil or antithetic to the public-righteous good.

In some ways, all this righteousness strikes me as rather wrongteous.