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I’ve been helping organize content at BlogCamp India 2006. It’s on September 9-10 in Chennai. Here’s what its all about:
Blogging is more than just a tool for online
communication. For bloggers and blog readers, it represents a way of
life where open communication, dialogue, feedback and collaboration
enrich content, helping us forge professional and personal
relationships. From encouraging government transparency, blogging about
children, discussions on economics, sharing poetry and literature,
ribtickling humour, online activism, movie reviews to Sunday musings,
the tool has changed lives for all those who use it and rely on it for
opinion, information, entertainment and business.
Because blogging has influenced each individual at so many
different levels, the theme of the BlogCamp in Chennai is going to be
“Living The Blog”
We hope to provide a forum where bloggers
can share their stories and be inspired by innovative and successful
blogging experiences. In the spirit of blogging and no barriers
interaction, the two-day event will be in an “unconference mode”.
Participants will have the choice of simultaneous workshops and
sessions that will be held in small groups and use relatively informal
ways of engaging each other, in conversations around the various
themes.
While Kiruba, Syed and their young team of Chennai bloggers have been doing a great job of getting the logistics out, creating a lot of buzz around the event, setting up the website and getting sponsors, Neha and I are working on the scheduling of sessions and content .. please do go over to this page and add/edit/modify things that make for a better event given the heterogeneity in the list of participants who are at different stages of blogging experience. Also, if there are topics you wish to cover, apart from the ones I am sharing below, do add them in here. It is really vital that every participant takes the onus of ensuring they get the opportunity to share and speak around their interest area — so I urge those interested, even if you are planning to participate remotely, do do do go on over and make BlogCamp yours.
Some of the themes around which sessions will be slotted that have emerged so far are:
* Blogging and Governance - how blogs are being used to provide
assistance during times of crisis, uncovering potential crimes,
activities, taking on the government, etc.
*
Blogging and Entrepreneurship - Many professionals are using blogs to
change their world. Here we talk about how blogging can work towards
career development and related areas.
Also, professional blogging, where people are beginning to actually experience that blogs can pay!
* Corporate Blogging - Many corporates have started blogging,
making them closer to customers. We ask you to share your stories on why you are incorporating blogs in your products and media
strategies.
*
Getting Geeky - the art and science of blogging - how to go about it,
tips and tricks of trade and taking blogging to the next level.
* Blogging and community - as a tool for action, collective or
distributed, as a binding force, as a way for individuals to
contribute, and to get back something.
* Blogging as New Media - as blogging goes mainstream, it complements journalism. Why traditional media should care about
blogging as a form of citizen journalism.
* Blogging as a Hobby - how blogs help you in showcasing your talents and skills, in sharing your deep thoughts.
Once the sessions are more or less frozen, we’ll set up a page there for volunteering to be Session Coordinators …
who will then take full responsibility for their session in terms of :
- who the speakers are
- how much time each one speaks
- coordinating with the speakers and scheduling the session
- how to engage others in the discussion
- tying back to the basic theme
- logistics and requirements
- assigning someone to whiteboard or blog or wikify all the discussions that ensued
Some folks have been pinging me for details on how to register, what it costs etc … so here are some clarifications and pointers to relevant pages on the wiki. There should be a page up soon for recommended accomodation for those travelling to Chennai for the event. To register, go here and add your name. The cost is Rs.300 for both days (less than 7 USD). More details on who’s attending, FAQs. A Flickr group has been set up too for BlogCamp06 - hope to see tons of photos from the event there!
Stuff that needs clarity and working on urgently:
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It has been a while since I have been promising myself that I must share my thoughts on BlogHer 2006. One of the best things for me there was hanging out with with old friends and making new ones … so shout out to danah, Nancy, Beth, Lisa, Elisa, Phil, Marc, Amy, Toby, Stephanie, Nicole, Susan, Grace, Sara, Salim ….. the list is endless 
. I enjoyed the Yahootinis at the cocktails - thanks Salim for leaving behind tons of free coupons! I even got a hug from Dave Winer - not a sexist one methinks - it was because I am one of the rare species that still uses Radio Userland and after attending our session on community assistance, he thinks I am tough as nails
Some of my reflections on the conference follow.
On the Structure of the conference
This is really a recap for those who weren’t there. It’s useful for those thinking of organizing events and I shared this with the group working on the BlogCamp in India earlier. I think the way the sessions were laid out for the most part, worked well. A few of the breakaway sessions were really large - and the audio system wasn’t great in all the rooms. Day 1 was instructional where we had about 1 hour sessions around
certain pre-determined topics - where presenters made some
formal-ish presentations - those that didn’t were much more useful IMO
- they ran workshops around questions the audience attending that
workshop had, with some moderation. These sessions were run in parallel -
and each ran for about 45 mins to 1 hour, with a repeat immediately
thereafter, so a fresh lot of participants could take part in the
session. So each participant at the conference was able to take part
in about 2 sessions in the slot. Day
Two was really just workshops - and much more unconference-like. These sessions were either
run completely open, or the panel spoke for about 5-10 mins each and
then it was thrown open for discussion. And action points were set too
which was nice !
There
were open discussions at the start of each day, and at the lunch
sessions, with some keynote speakers - again this was done in the form
of a moderated group discussion, and the whole attempt was to involve
the audience in it - which they managed so well even with 400 folks on
day one and 750 odd on day two. The one bugbear was that because they had so many sponsors,
they allowed the sponsors 10 mins of spiel before each of the open
discussions and keynote sessions - which wasnt received too well. The
other thing they did with sponsors - was give them a separate area to
show off their products and this was more effective I feel.
I was a little lost finding my Birds of a Feather group
- I think what was missing was a little board or something to suggest
the title of the session. By the time I got there, there was no place
to sit, and I couldn’t hear everyone very well and so I lost interest
in the session.
Here’s a great post by Christopher Carfi on conference marketing and how the sponsors handled themselves - some well and others making a real ass of themselves - at BlogHer 06.
On Our Session on Community Assistance
I really enjoyed it. Really. It was wonderful to meet Grace and Sara and work with them to ensure we had a session that really rocked. These are ladies who really have their feet on the ground, and hearts of gold - and I feel so priviledged to have heard their stories and learnt from them.
Some of the posts done around our Community Assistance Panel after our conversations there, which were greatly enriched by participation from the audience:
What I really liked is, apart from sharing stories, we did manage to take the discussion further into actionable points and came up with some promising ideas, which I have lifted off Christine Herron’s blog post here:
Some things people said that I liked:
Jeremy Pepper -“This is the only time that I have not seen the newbies attacked as
idiots or undeserving the veterans attention, but rather working
together to make the community better. Let me ask you: is that such a
bad thing?”
Lisa Stone - “Own the fact that you’re a writer. A lot of women, and especially bloggers, don’t do that” (smiling - Dilip where are you? and Peter .. who always ask me whether I am a writer or blogger .. and so far I’ve always said blogger … I own up now to be a writer:))
Nancy on the culture of love - “If we cannot feel safe to speak our individual
truths, even if they are not the truths of others, we won’t get
anywhere. I know I still have a long way to go down this road. But if I
continue to react hatefully and in the culture of fear (fear of men,
fear of women, fear of making a fool of myself) I won’t get anywhere.
So I’ll keep trying to move more towards the culture of love. That
includes apologizing for inadvertently hurting you or anyone else. And
trying to be more thoughtful in how I express myself.”
On the Other Sessions:
I’ve blogged about three sessions I really enjoyed earlier - What’s Your Crazy Idea, Ten Types of Web Writing and Tagging.
Here’s a great summary of the Get Deeply Geeky session which was quite inspiring as a lot of geeky girls got together - and here’s a really neat map created by Nancy while the session was running. 
While I liked what each member of the closing keynote address said as individuals, and I felt that most of the audience were enthralled and inspired by them, personally I couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy about the tone of the discussion there - it reminded me a little of those early TV shows talking of women’s liberation movements - while this spirit is great at one level, in some ways it made me uncomfortable and a little fearful that the gender divide would only be greater because of such discussions.
I was a little disappointed too, that there wasn’t more discussion around the crippling DOPA - and as I told danah - I would have loved to see BlogHers translate their dissent into action of some form - set up a petition, set up common tags and commit to write against it on a specific day, google-bomb it in some way. The spirit of BlogHer could have been used so effectively then … I think its a wasted opportunity.
BlogHer 06 Links Resource:
Technorati on BlogHer
BlogHers on Flickr
The conference blog
Amy Gahran’s wiki on Blog coverage of BlogHer 06. I really enjoyed meeting Amy who contributed a lot to our session - she’s done some great live-blogging too.
And finally, my message to Elisa, Lisa and Jory:
A warm hug from India, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of this really wonderful and real movement called BlogHer.
And for the opportunity of meeting so many women who I would have never
had otherwise. I’ve been following some of the
rumblings and ramblings in the blogosphere - around sponsors, around
the Mommybloggers, around the food, around the venue, around the erratic wifi. Hey there are some things you can fix, but you
can’t really please everybody and shouldn’t even attempt to! These ramblings and your thoughtful reflections as you go ahead into BlogHer07 are
all signs that it is a real ‘movement’ (for want of a better term -
revolution isn’t quite it) and that there is momentum. It is really the
natural extension to chaotic organisms as they grow - chaos and creativity!
And I keep feeling
that BlogHer is bigger than the tools that enable us to participate,
its bigger than the conferences and meet-ups and networks that are
built. It is about, as Stowe Boyd so eloquenty states in a really thoughtful post on context - taking our eyes off the tech in the foreground to acknowledge the world behind, forming the background. It is about rolling snowballs that Euan Semple articulates wonderfully in the context of citizen-based politics:
“Who knows, maybe out of all of these conversations and exchange of
ideas that blogging has enabled we will some day tackle the really big
stuff. The stuff that matters. How we run ourselves and conduct
ourselves in the world. It may not be any one particular group and
certainly unlikely to be some sort of “killer app.” but I am more and
more confident that the connected worldview that we are fostering is
different from what we have experienced before and certainly affords us
a new means of expressing ourselves and making our views known. Maybe
we will be able to regain some of the ground lost to those who see life
as a fight which has to be won and polarise everything into black and
white maybe the middle has something to add after all.”
Do you know which search terms people use on search engines to find your web site? Do you know which search engines send you the most visitors? Do you know how many of these visitors purchase something on your web site? You can get the answer to these questions quickly and easily.
Google and MSN will often use the text that the ODP uses to describe your web site in their own search results. Unfortunately, the descriptions in the Open Directory Project are often outdated and they don’t reflect the current status of a web site.
The contents of a web page are important for the Search Engine rankings of a web page. inbound Links are even more important if you want to get high rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN.
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