BUSMAN'S HOLIDAY

Well, I had a fascinating morning. I meandered on over to the Piedmont Blogger's conference.

I hitched a ride over with my colleague from the law school, Eric Muller, so I was able to get all the inside skinny on his last three weeks -- much of which has been devoted to debating Michelle Malkin on her new book, much of which is an argument about the World War II-era Japanese internment, his area of academic specialty. You can read his comments on Malkin's position here (just keep scrolling.)

The conference itself was set up by Ed Cone, a local journalist and blogger, (who's stopped by here occasionally to disagree with me in the comments section!) and Dave Hoggard, a local community activist.

Ed and Dave set this thing up in an absolutely beautiful way. Instead of panels, they each took a turn moderating a "conversation" -- modelled on what happens in blogging -- and the sessions were fascinating because both of them were able to keep these conversations through a combination of calling on folks with something to contribute at a particular moment, and using their (amazing) knowledge of the interests and backgrounds of everyone there to draw specific people in at specific moments.

If you look at any of the blogs on the conference list, what's interesting is that so many of them really are focused on the very particular concerns of a particular local community. The politicians are obviously blogging what'c going on that would be of interest to their constitutents. Many of the blogs are devoted to something special about a given community -- the music scene, say. And even several of the political blogs are trying to look at even national political questions in terms of what they might mean for North Carolina and even community more tightly defined -- Greensboro, say.

Now, that's obviously not my thing. But it really was incredibly interesting to hear how folks are trying to harness the medium of blogging in all sorts of creative ways. (Although, that said, I very much appreciated Ed's attempt to tamp down what he called "blogger triumphalism." It's a tool, and a potentially very powerful one. It ain't the Second Coming.) The assessments of journalists who blog (and those who don't) were of most interest to me, but it was a morning very well spent. (The place wasn't WiFi, which everyone agreed was just as well, since it meant people's attention wasn't divided, but Ed blogs the conference here.)

So, I didn't get much posting done this morning, but I did expand my bloggy horizons!

Comments

[Ed Cone]

Thanks for coming, Cori, and for your quite valuable contributions to the discussion.

[dauber]

I'm delighted you thought I was able to make a contribution . . . it really was a blast, and a great mix of folks.

[Billy THe Blogging Poet]

It was indeed great to be a part of something so great, and I'm so happy to have met and talked with all of you.