Monday, March 06, 2006

The Blogging Summit Revisited

Well…. it’s been an interesting weekend in the Wisconsin blogosphere.  It all started on Friday when Wispolitics announced a Blogging Summit.

When I saw it on Friday evening, I was a bit ticked at the lack of “little guy” bloggers on the agenda.  I emailed both Sean and Kevin to see if I was out of line.  They both seemed to agree that the conference was not right. 

Sean was first out of the gate with a blistering post in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  I followed with a concurring post at 0709 Saturday morning.  Saturday saw several posts around the blogosphere regarding the Summit, including some energetic conversations in the comments and some tangent discussions.

I received an email from Jeff Mayers, of WisPolitics, at 1545 on Saturday afternoon.  He sent it to folkbum and me.  Mayers graciously admitted that they had made a mistake be not including a broader spectrum of bloggers and invited Jay and I to join the Summit.  Over the next 24 or hours or so, we discussed various ways for us to participate.  Should we join an existing panel, have a new panel, bring more bloggers in, etc. 

In the end, it was decided to have the two of us on a new panel.  The thought was for it to be a very free-form discussion with a lot of audience participation.  In this way, it would kind of mimic a blog post with comments. 

I confess that I struggled with whether or not to accept the invitation.  For one, by accepting I was opening myself to criticism for “selling out” or whatever.  For two, frankly, I’m extremely self conscious about being singled out when there are so many other fantastic bloggers in Wisconsin.  But, if I didn’t accept, I was opening myself up to criticism for just being a complainer who was unwilling to participate in a solution. 

In the end, I decided that participating was the best course of action.  I think that it will be a fun event and I hope that our participation will make it a bit more fun.  Hopefully, next year will offer many more opportunities for other bloggers to participate. 

So there’s how it went down.  I give a lot of credit of Jeff Mayers for bending on this.  A lesser man would have just ignored the criticism from the blogosphere.  Kudos to Jeff. 

The Blog Summit is on the 18th.  Here are all of the details.  I highly encourage all of you to attend.  It is not restricted to just bloggers.  If you are a reader or just want to find out what this stuff is all about, it would be a good chance to meet a lot of bloggers from all parts of the blogosphere.  Plus… it’s free.

(4) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0955 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin + The Blog

  1. Those guys at Wispolitics are good guys.  THey are very enthusiastic about blogging and I’m also glad to see they were willing to accomodate.

    Posted by Simon Blue on March 06, 2006 at 1112 hrs


  2. Good news, Owen, I’m looking forward to this event!!

    Posted by Larry on March 06, 2006 at 1238 hrs


  3. Agreeing to participate was a good decision.

    I think most of us would agree that you’re a good example of a “real” grassroots blogger.

    I’ll be there. But my goal is to remain completely unrecognized.

    (And if you see a guy in a wheelchair, it ain’t me.)

    Posted by elliot on March 06, 2006 at 1307 hrs


  4. I think you and folkbum are excellent choices. You are both very clear thinkers and are prime examples of citizen bloggers. There are others of course who would have made excellent panelists and perhaps in future summits we will hear from them also.

    But this is a start and a good one. Even better now that you and Jay will share a panel.

    Posted by Dean Mundy on March 06, 2006 at 1557 hrs


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