Sunday, December 11, 2005

Building Budding Bloggers

As befitting activists, we ended the BlogLeft Massachusetts gathering-like-thing yesterday with questions about what to do next. Liberals, pinkos, progressives and plain old Democrats accomplish the most good when they have a to-do list in hand.

One intriguing goal was to host blogging workshops, mini-schools to spread the joys, distractions, and primarily the skills. That's one of high interest and sure to happen.BlogLeft logo


If you're thinking, why bother, come with me to the misty yesterday or well, yesterday. Jon Garfunkel of Civilities.net (he likes to portray himself as an ezine guy, not a blogger, but we know what he is) led the technologies and futures breakout session.

Perhaps the most intriguing rant was from the multi-phasic ubergeek cos. He contended that we have plenty of technologies at our disposal already. On the other hand, he knows that these can be applied much better to the tasks of informing and persuading.

The proper strategy, he said to much approval around the table, is for existing bloggers to teach as many non-bloggers the how and why of it. Sharing what we do, what works best, what's efficient, how to get info, and how to implement can flatten the ramp considerably for others.

This can be everything from how to set up, how to blog and what makes it easiest. It can mean the HTML and the Wikis and the other tools. The idea is to save others from our mistakes and get them analyzing and publishing.

After that, one or more somebodies will come up with the best ideas on how to use and expand those technologies.

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