Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog

Agenda:

• “everyone has a blog…. permeates everything”
• Z: difference between blogging, the use of the tool, and blogging *culture*, which is about connections, etc.
• LB: our blogging is different than someone blogging for their company. personal blogs can get away w a lot more. no higher *official* authority.
• bi: blog key element: transparency plus searchable archive. used in business context, it may not be a typical blog, but it starts to bring in some aspects of things from the blog culture. a client of mine used a private blog as a workspace for planning, for example. when they made their final report 8 months later they had a great history, searchable archive.
• eg: did use of the tool help change the culture?
• bi: i’d like to think so… i think it did influence
• nolan: but then we once thought the web would do that. it may not be the tool but the person using it
• jd: or the culture you try to ram the tool into.
• bi for example ppl originally worried re being transparent came to like it.
• z: do you feel any bloggers have/are violated the rules of blogging?
• jd: offshoots: political blogs have the same debates, groups think it’s all new but they reinvent old arguments. it’s strange. there’s no good history, no good way to see what went before. you have to reallyt dig. barrier for enrtry to blogging so low, history so unorganized, but is redefined in the same kinds of ways by each new group.
• z: with my own blog i’m selfconscious about things like use of profanity, is it ok to use flickr pictures, etc. i don’t know where to go for the answer. as an academic there are manuals and rules, none for bloggers
• z: myspace episode on msnbc suggested that ppl are different there than inr eal life. i think that’s false. my voice as a blogger and as a person on myuspace aren;’t that different. does your voice carry thru?
• lb: people with multiple blogs may project multiple personas. several of my friends do this. behave one way to one audience, etc. (tangent re fandom as example)
• jd: mysep[ace is a seocial networking site. so it will emphasize certain aspects of personality than others. more of an identity projection thing than writing into the ether. esp for teenagers.
• lb: a lot of things ie friendster, the blog is attached but isn’t the primary focus of the user account – the profile or soemthing else is.
• z: will there be a major push back? ppl are eager now to reach out… will in 5 years people want to share less widely?
• several: it’s already happening…
• jd: lots fo veteran web people are now overwhelmed, doing thingsd behind private walls
• jd: part of it is getting older, more responsibilities. when the highschool kids get older, have to get jobs, how will they treat myspace
• lb: back a few years ago there were more young adults postcollege etc. is there a trend as to wehther those folks have kept up?
• nolan: joke: blogs came on as the tech industry collapsed
• bw: zillow… real estate by founder of expedia

• lots of discussion
• good idea
• jd:might draw in ppl who are sick of talking about blogs
• bi: but we’re still about blogs at the core. “blogger” is an identity the way “tagger” isn’t
• jd: i dunno what i am… I hardly blog, but on the web, flickr, etc, i throw out all sorts of digital content
• z: last night blogger mr niceguy said a blogger today is a pamphleter of yesteryear. just one more way to get info out.
• nolan: publishing
• new media users group
• do we wanna have the blog in it?
  
• j says it should be internet & society 🙂

• z says he likes “convergence”
• ah: tools
• bi i like “social”
• ah: i wish “userland” was still open as a name…
• jd: web tools / culture / digital tools & culture…
• nolan… avoid course titles
• bi i like erica’s “:blogs & social web”
• z: what do we want name to do for us?
• w/out an official name, we have things that run in newspapers, etc., without an official name. so we’ve needed one of those for a while. erica and i have talked about making busienss cards for the group. they’d need a name of the group that is descriptiuve enough. an identity we can say to others.
• z: web 2.0?
• many: no, not used widely enough, overused elsewhere
• nolan: “blogs &…”
• bw: blogs & social media, blogs & new media
• j: i would go for something more generic than even web or net… technology…sometimes we just talk about tools, ie tools for podcasts. the tool itself isn;t social web always, ie mics for podcasts
• ah: blogs & new technology
• z: naming is actions… if you blog you’re a blogger. can we define the group by our collective actions that we discuss here?
• j: “the boring thursday conversation group”
• the navelgazers
• z: if “cyberspace” is dead, what then? ross mayfield says “on” so how about “On Thursdays”
• j: how about – gasp – thursday meetings at berkman
• j: but being always on the same day is tricky, we can’t move the day of emeting without moving blog AND changing name…
• z: newbie to guru
• ah: i like that, it helped me not be intimdated
• bw: duality of developers and users. sometimes developers talk and then ask for users. newbie to guru is important
• j: sad all our developers have stopped coming
• z: we do have the berkman brand, should include it in the title…
• j: tho there are naming / trademark issues. the “at berkman” was a good compromise
• eg: i will check on the status of the affiliation thing, see if there’s any change over the years.
• eg: nonetheless the name should exist independent of berkman
• bi i like blogs & social web, or blogs & social media
• z: i like “social media” – it says a lot to both newbie & guru
• j: what about blogs & social technology
• bi: “new” sounds like hype
• j: not all we discuss is new. to some blogs are new, tho they’re old.
• z: who *wouldn’t* fit in here? specificty identifies audience. who do we want not to bother targeting? name to reflect audience.
• j: look round the room. Ann, not new anymore, but began really new. learned a lot by being here.
• ah: this is the place i hear about evetyhing first.
• z: what brought you out?
• ah: having a web presence
• j: but sometimes ppl just trip thru after reading the newspaper
• ah: yeah, ppl come from all over
• j: even ppl w no interest in blogging
• j: to proceed, let’s post something on the list. post the top contenders. ask people to look, to suggest more names, etc.
• sun: make a blog post too.

• bill’s talk was great, cos bill kicks ass
• bill talking to ksg on march 7: blogs for policy wonks
• rebecca & charlie’s dig med in asia thing was spiffy too, there’s a post at the berkman homepage
• eating next week with the meetup group: grafton st
• Michael! Going to surgery!
• events! Upcoming!
• last sunday of february for dim sum? 1pm? or first weekend of march? (lets’ ask list)(sun asks if there’s dim sum at night?)
• we could ice skate at frog pond after dim sum??
• where to eat food tonight? – cambridge common.