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Some ideas from BT2.0
Yesterday was hell! After three days of intensive conversations (including BlogWalk 3) with so many people I was so exhausted that I hardly could do anything. My brains were shut off for the day, so there was absolutely no chance for me to blog anything. Yesterday evening we went to bed really early and this morning I woke up feeling a little bit more alive, but only just a little. Nevertheless I have some energy left to finally do a little bit of a summary and reflection on BlogTalk.
The first day of BlogTalk started with a keynote from Mark Bernstein. He stated that we should go beyond explaining why blogs matter, since we've already reached a critical mass of people who realize the importance of blogging. As I said at the beginning of my presentation I didn't agree with Mark. There still are so many people who don't even know that blogs exist and therefore can't know of the beautiful things blogging can do for a person. Many bloggers experience difficulties in explaining to their employees why blogging is a good thing to do and not a threat to the organization they work for.
Other things during the first day I found really interesting were the Scandinavian researchers on my own panel (nice touch, a complete female panel :). Thanks for the good presentations Stephanie, Therese and Lisbeth. I wasn't able to take notes during the panel (somehow I got nervous for presenting at an international conference for the first time in my live), but I'm definitely interested in your papers.
Interestingly enough Jorg Kantel somehow thinks of reading Habermas again. He sees a lot of parallels between my research on Habermas and his own vision of blogging. I wish him good luck with this light reading ;). I'm sorry to say I missed the beginning of Torill her keynote. Therefore it was a bit of gues what the outline of her story was, but it was clear to me that she really knows what is going on in the blogosphere, picking up the topics of interest (e.g. emergent behavior).
I recieved many compliments on my own presentation. It was the first time I had the chance to talk about my research on weblogs to people who really know what is going on in the blogosphere. I was a bit scared that somehow I got it all wrong and that nobody believes in my research. Fortunately I got so much positive feedback on my research that now I feel a bit more confident. All the conversations I had during the day and during dinner really helped me for the final revision of my thesis. Some things I should explain more (e.g. the difference between blogs and fora) and thanks to the need for preparing a presentation I have a clearer view on the red thread in my document (the most important thing missing according to my committee).
The second day of BlogTalk started with a keynote from Mena and Ben Trott, the co-founders of Six Apart, the company behind Moveable Type and TypePad. A nice observation from Mena that in the end she didn't want to be famous through blogging, but wanted to write for a small audience that really knows her. I think that really coincides with my own feeling of blogging. Not that I want to write for friends and family, but for a group of people that are interested in the same things as I am. Ben and Mena held a nice presentation, but it wasn't really a keynote presentation. They weren't opening up the discussion and that was probably the cause no questions were asked to them during the discussion.
One presentation that cought my attention at the second day was that of Lee Bryant. I talked to him after dinner on tuesday and already told him that I'm impressed with the huge project he has on his hands, introducing blogs to a whole network of organizations. I'm intrigued by this project and could only wish I could join such a project after finishing my masters. Thanks for the case-study Lee!
During the day it became harder to follow the presentations of the panellists. Some moments not only my notebook switched to stand-by, my brains did too every now and then. I did pay attention to Barbara Ganley and Tom de Bruyne though. They gave some really nice insights how to use weblogs in scholorly environments. Barbara noticed that her students (literature btw) took over the class and that one student said to her that actually they learned more from eachother than from the teacher. A nice case of emergent behavior.
Tom talked about the fun they had during the blogging and teaching. The class meeting reinforced the blogging and the blogging reinforced the class. Tom backed me up in my own ideas in multichanneling. Some things are better coordinated using a different communicationchannel, e.g. fora or mailinglists.
All in all it has been quit an experience. I've met so many interesting people, had so many interesting conversations. I can only thank everybody attending this event for making it such a fruitful place for good conversations. A special thanks to the organisation for creating surroundings in which good conversations can take place. Will there be a BT3.0? If so, I'll definitely be there!
