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Permanent link to archive for Monday, August 16, 2004. Monday, August 16, 2004

BloggerCon III date: November 6, 2004Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Another November 7 activity -- the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum in lovely Mountain View.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

CBS MW: "Google says it wants to complete its initial public offering on Tuesday night." Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Love RSS.News.Com: RSS gets down to business. Using RSS for calendars is not a new idea, but it's a very good use for RSS. Basically you subscribe to a calendar, and then add items in the future. The feed shows you the items that have been scheduled for that day. It's like MailToTheFuture for aggregators. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Rebecca MacKinnon is coming. Excellent. She says there's a 5K race for charity at Stanford the next day. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Hotels reasonably close to Stanford. Almost all have free high-speed Internet. We should probably choose a default show hotel so it's easy to stay at the same place.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Scoble asks if people are interested in a bus tour the day after. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

In progress: Getting in the loopPermanent link to this item in the archive.

New mail list for BloggerCon III. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Dan Gillmor: "Count me in. Hope I can help." You just did.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named uncleAlsop.jpgAnother rule about BloggerCon. Everyone is invited and the cost is $0. So it's the antithesis of the classic Silicon Valley conference, whose goal is to be exclusive, where participation, even as a member of the audience, is a priviledge conferred on the few. No disrespect to that model of conferences, because I supported them myself, and helped Stewart Alsop with Agenda and Demo. Stewart is an expert craftsman of exclusivity, and it worked well in the eighties and early nineties. But with the turn to blogs there's a new kind of filter in place, courage. Do you have the guts to put your ideas out there, to be tested in a public forum, without a brand or masthead over your name to cushion the fall if you get it wrong or say something that offends a powerful person? And do you have the guts to come to a conference where there is no pecking order, where your ideas might actually be heard and acted on? There's safety in being powerless, but would you like to try being powerful instead? That's the challenge of BloggerCon. The members of exclusive clubs are welcome, but first-come-first-serve.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named woz.jpgThis Con is filled with contrasts. Hatched in The People's Republic of Cambridge, where open and free makes so much sense, we now go to the heart of the technology industry, the incubator of Silicon Valley, Stanford University, symbol of what John Doerr called "greatest legal accumulation of wealth in human history," and say Let's start over, get back to our beginng. The Homebrew Computer Club, where so many of the pioneers of personal computers got their start, was also a figment of Stanford's great imagination. Forget the money for a moment, and let's focus on what we can do, working together, to create a better future.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

The date we chose is November 6. It's a Saturday, after the election, but just after the election, which is on the previous Tuesday.We've picked a tentative date for BloggerCon III in Palo Alto. After some coffee, I'll post a news item on the newly relocated BloggerCon site, and then get to work porting the registration app. Once that's up, I'll send a brief email to the people who attended participated in previous BloggerCons. The goal is to say "unless there's a huge problem which we don't forsee this is the date." Your job is to say if we've missed a huge problem. It's all part of the unconference concept. Do it yourself conference management. If you want a great conference you can help.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Note the striked-through "attended" in the pargraph above. It's so hard to change the way we think about conferences. For non-blogging conferences, "attended" is the right word for most people. You play a passive role, except in the hallways, which is why so many people spend so much time in the hallways. In blogs, we assume that the people reading your blog at least could have their own blogs; just like at an unconference, anyone could speak if they wanted to. As someone who wants to speak at every conference, whether I'm permitted to or not, it would be virtually impossible for me to launch a conference without changing the rules so that it's acceptable for everyone to speak at all times. But old habits die hard, and the language of the old style of conferences creeps back. But you're not attending, you're not part of the audience. The discussion leader is allowed to call on you even if your hand isn't raised, and can cut you off if you're repeating a point that's already been made. We assume people are attentive, are present, aren't asleep. Ask anyone who was at BloggerCon II. It works. By acting as if people are conscious, they stay conscious. Heh. A little trick that works. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

NY Times: Warner's Tryst With Bloggers Hits Sour Note. Misleading headline. Warner Brothers Records decided to promote a new band through MP3 bloggers. Most turned them down. Then apparently Warner started an astroturf campaign, got caught, and denied it.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

The Daily Illini, an independent student newspaper for the University of Illinois, has a collection of RSS feeds.  Permanent link to this item in the archive.

     

Last update: Monday, August 16, 2004 at 7:36 PM Eastern.

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