Friday, June 23, 2006Notes from BloggerCon 
getting ready to do some liveblogging from BloggerCon
| | (live blogging with all the attendant misspellings, mistakes and missed contexts) |
| | (one of the best uses for the OPML outliner for my $ is the easy w/ which you can take notes in a live setting) |
| | (anything in parenthesis is my own comments) |
| | it's in chronological order. That means new stuff gets added to the bottom. |
Schedule 
Doc's Notes
Photos on Flickr
Random Observations:
| | People love their model #s. |
| | "rhinoceros in the room." |
| | "Blogging is a gateway drug." |
Welcome: Dave Winer
bio; scripting news
Says there's no audience; it's participants. (of course, many of us are participating by writing notes as we listen. Asynchronous participation).
non-commercial conference: don't pitch products (laying down the law).
Doc Searls is doing technography ( I think that means he's taking notes; on the screen in front of us, using an OPML editor; he's also editorializing as he writes). Hope to capture the action item list
Niall Kennedy: "...get permission from our wives" -- well, that holds an assumption about bloggers, 'eh?
All about the logistics (come for dinner even if you didn't come for the conference)
Everything is on the record and ready for distrubtion unless someone specifically says no, keep it quiet.
People continue to wonder in.
Trying to decide on the song:
Phil Torrone: Tools
bio; make; doc's notes
most known for writing how-tos
which tools would you use to put a recipe online?
| | flickr is the best thing for that. That's bad. Flickr is a photo site. It's not a how-to site. |
Hope the tools they get better (finding projects online, looking games)
| | what tools do people use when they are putting their hobbies online? if they aren't, why aren't they? |
(it's not easy to make screencasts)
(tools put use/documentation into the hands of users but this has to be advocated and could be a way that companies get to better how-tos)
general opinion that apps are still too hard to use
| | is explaining how to use the best way or is fixing it so it's easier better? |
We are dependent on services (like YouTube) what happens if they go away? Or if they get monetized in a way that makes it increasingly less useful?
| | (constant problem for nonprofits/ngos) |
| | not just that they sharing tools are owned so to speak, so are the playing tools (iPod, anyone?) |
Sharing is a constant concern in figuring out the how-tos
| | documenting for archive; document to share -- there is a distinction and there should be an elegant way for the users to do both |
Proprietary sharing is built into the DIY devices (things like cameras linking to the makers sharing tool)
| | (can proprietary and sharing really *really* be used in the same sentence?) |
Documenting use can be as hard as making something from scratch; that reduces the compulsion to share
| | (again, the community sense. Users use tools in unexpected ways; companies should make the discovery of unexpected uses possible both for themselves and future development and for the users) |
Interesting -- a lot of folks here use del.icio.us for personal use only
crafters are using forums to share how-to and then creating marketplaces but still the tools are basically broken
People don't get wikis yet
| | (they don't look enough like the writing tools we're used to; make a wiki that looks like word and people would get it) |
Hard to use blogging tool as personal knowledge management tool because the whole post is public or not -- rather than a place to have hidden notes. The thoughts that you aren't ready to share yet or the place where you are making linkages or just general notes to yourself.
People don't use the sharing tools because of IP concerns
| | two options: things get more valuable by sharing them and you get less valuable (because you no longer own the thing you shared); or, you and the thing gets more valuable by sharing |
(you can't expect a whole organization to get something; you have to find advocates in the organization)
Don't frame the ways that these tools will provide benefit
| | most users don't get how these tools will make people's lives easier/better |
Enhanced podcast (people aren't doing it)
(Tools still need to be cobbled together way too much; part of why flock is interesting)
(Concentration on making; what about using?)
(getting lost in the podcast tool talk)
mp3 is a final release format; mess w/ it in other tools and then save as an mp3 for sharing
| | so now there's prodction, archive, and share versions all of which are different and how do they get synched up? |
Tools mentioned (not remotely comprehensive)
Jay Rosen: Citizen Journalism
bio; PressThink; session description; doc's notes
Here's the agenda. The job of the session is to answer these questions.
| | I'll plug the questions from the agenda into the notes just to make it a bit easier |
| | Notion of users know more than we do journalism. How do you tap the distributed knowledge out there and use it to improve journalism. |
| | Spent time reviewing the stuff at the bottom of his agenda post -- the things that are motivating the conversation. |
Primary question: How do we actually do users-more-than-we-do journalism and break news with it, proving that social networks can produce kick-ass reporting?
| | Susan Mernit: need to recognize that what needs to happen is incredibly grassroots and journalism to date as been very top-down. How can news organizations find what people are already writing? Use tags and microformats to make things more discoverable? |
| | (from room) Responsibility of the journalist opening their mind to the possibility that users/readers do know a lot |
| | (from room) Phrase open source journalism is a very new model. Journalism is writing supported by a few advertisers. This is more like massive parallel processing. We really need a completely different phrase. |
| | (missed some cause I'm screwing around w/ the notetaking tool) |
| | Where is the $ going to come from to do these kinds of projects? |
| | How do you deal with the issue of publishing unverified things? How does that connect w/ the posts done by bloggers? |
| | (from room) tap into the pool of people writing about topics already. Don't need to create a new tool/community. It probably already exists. |
| | (from room) Maybe we need to replace the story. The idea that the story teller has more information than the listener is built in. Maybe the filtering process changes. |
| | (this links to the previous session about the tools and the way they are connected to sharing; what if they are also connected to participation) |
| | (this also gets to the comments about tagging because that's how you begin to build an understanding) |
| | (from the room) report $ that flows across the government into a centralized database so that people can start to find out the information; a part of citizen journalism is making sure that people have the data to begin with |
| | Idea that work has to be hidden prior to publication because people will still on the story |
| | (from the room) don't get rid of "story" in the post modern world; get rid of the THE story -- the single version of truth |
| | (how do you engage people for 10 minutes and then aggregate the results to end up w/ a view of an incident or set of facts or the ways that various facts can come together) |
| | (from the room) there is a community of users who are doing what's being talked about here -- but it's happening in the conservative side |
| | (from the room) skills gap and knowledge gap between the people who are doing journalism now and other people who would like to be doing journalism. Stock scandal stuff came from an organization that does forensic accounting. There needs to be a way to marry expertise. |
| | (Rosen) News industry isn't going pay attention until the bloggers break stories |
| | (maybe it's not about breaking stories; maybe it's about continuing the stories and digging deeper) |
| | (from the room) changing the product that we are creating as something that's different everytime you check on it |
| | (like traffic/weather/season standings -- sports is a constantly followed evolving sotry that clearly changes as you go to different sources) |
| | (fans are such an important part of sports that maybe that's a place to start; the division isn't so unnatural/different) |
URLs/Tools mentioned in this session:
Chris Pirillo: Users in Charge
bio; blog; session description; doc's notes
we are users of many things; technology is just one of 'em; many things impact our lives
if something that you are using isn't working the way you think it could or should work are you saying something about that?
(links to the other session, eh?)
blogs allow product/service users to take control of bits of the conversation (you get to voice your opinion)
(the ability to listen is predicated on the ability to parse the various streams in a way that allows for reliable listening)
as a user, one of the tools you have to make a prodcut/service better is giving your opinions. It opens up a dialog.
(from the room) As a user want to be sure that tools allow for export of data.
How, as a user, do you let people know that it's important to you to be able to pull the data out?
(the issue is that there is so much that we use that we don't actually understand. Like electricity. I have no choice but to be locked in and trust the data -- the form of a monthly bill -- is correct. How do you deal w/ the fact that you don't understand everything? How much time do we have to really drill down into this or should we just deal w/ it in places where it really matters?)
(from the room) parsing data is hard.
(interruption from Dave) the users have to run the conversation; not the developers; a chance for the developers to learn to listen to what the users want
(from the room) I don't just want to be able to access my data; I want to use an interface that makes my interaction w/ that data easy.
(from the room) We really need to shift to a user/developer connection; co-creator. Not just focus groups in a traditional sense but conversations.
(must connect the user to the product in a way that makes sense for both; enough information for the users to take off in the ways that wish to)
(I keep making the same side-notes again and again)
(my hammer)
(from the room) people need a place to start, assuming people are all power users is not appropriate
(from the room) would like easy EASY ways to be able to contact the maker
frustration -- users have to find the solution on their own
(I'm lost on waht this has to do w/ blogging; is this session a user bitch session? is it a chance to talk about how users can use blogs to get their voice out?)
(from the room) a place where users can aggregate their complaints?
(from the room) I want a tool to do one or two things very well
(I want my tools to plug into each other the ways I want)
(from the room) A slider where people can position themselves on a user scale (nice!)
(from the room) The way a product makes you feel is a feature.
(from the room) An odeo like way of, when using a product, to record a message that gets sent to the developers
URLs/Tools mentioned in this session:
Niall Kennedy: Standards for Users
blog; session description; doc's notes
Goes through some standards: baseball diamond, stephenson gauge, rj11, standard shipping container
(session hijack: Dave Winer wants Kennedy to describe RSS; unclear about reasons that this is okay if other kinds of explanations are not okay)
For reasons I'm not clear on -- given the topic -- we have a feed open on the window and they are describing it. User conference.
Question for the room: what standards do people want from their tools?
(from the room) people want calendar standards. Are you storing data in a calendar or trying to coordinate a group of people?
(microformats gets at this)
(from the room) Not just about standards, also about being able to pull your reviews and move them into other places (tagging helps this, eh?)
(from the room) Why do I have to know whether or not something works? I don't know how my car works. But I still get in my car and drive.
(but car users are the one's who've advocated for increased safety features so there may be a place where the real deal is describing the benefit and advocating for features that can be proven to increase those benefits. So maybe the question is, what is a point of pain for users -- backups -- and how is that fixed? A default backup solution?)
(I've been lost in the room and so am spending time in the IRC channel)
(this is the time of day when I start running out of notetaking steam)
(from the room) want to be able to pull the metadata out of a system w/ the original data
(users want backups which means faith in services; how do you vet services?)
(backup and export. People want their stuff saved and they want to be able to change their mind. Portability data.)
(from the room) Need a good tool to compare various tools.
(from IRC) a need for a blog export that perserves or somehow fixes your links to yourself (so you link to one post in another post -- that gets broken) I think you don't move your old content but sort of restart and keep the old stuff as archives
(from the room) inbound links will break. Here's the deal: when you have an ecosystem, it really is hard to move from place to another.
Tools/URLs mentioned in this session:
Lisa Williams: Emotional Life
blog; session description; doc's notes
(Not for nothing, I expect my notes here are going to be terrible; not the session. It's me.)
went to blogging to be alone; now bloggercon is home
(question to the room) why do you blog
| | reputation/exposure/what it can do to elevate career |
| | without comments, the feedback loop seems closed |
| | There's a version of math that you do to determine what does and does not get shared. |
| | how do you know what part of a relationship you own? It seems so complicated to negotiate all of those boundaries. |
| | Lisa Williams: when I went from a paper journal to a blog, I had to give up complaining about people. And that's been good for me. |
| | if shy, able to connect to people through blogging and makes it easier to connect to people when you actually meeet them. |
| | personal brand: things that are personal and professional can mix. It's okay. |
| | my blog has helped me cleanup my relationships; don't say things that can't be backed up |
| | can bring transparency to life as well as your business life |
| | isn't ironic that 15 years ago in Eastern Europe people were spying on each other and reporting it and it was all in secret. And now we're sharing it all in flickr? |
| | blogging is emotional because it's about freedom; a part of that freedom is the freedom to create youself online |
My own to-dos:
- post summary to ext337
- Look at some simple screencasts for some of the tools that I talk about (maybe one of TSS)
- blog post about ways that companies can invest in community to get to the best kind of use
- blog post about the ways that these tools come together to create understanding in ways that are individually meaningful. Do we lose anything as a culture there?
Friday, March 24, 2006Finally got a chance to upload the notes from yesterday's keynote by Guy Kawasaki. 
Thursday, March 23, 2006(ntc06) Guy Kawasaki keynote
Blog: Let The Good Times Roll
Top 10 on the Art of Innovation
| | Make meaning -- as motivation |
| | end something bad, suboptimal |
| | perpetuate somehting good |
| | increase creativity/productivity/peace of mind of people |
| | can't just duke it out in the current curve, move to the next and try there |
| | Revolution can elements of crappiness; which is not the same thing as shipping crap |
| | If you wait for the perfect world, you will never ship; the world will pass you by |
| | version 1 has to become 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc |
| | to be a revolutionary you have to be largely in denial |
| | Make a product you'd want to use |
| | 2 reactions: love it/hate it |
| | do something very valuable but lots of other companies do it: compete on price |
| | filmloop: photo broadcasting system -- push photos to people's desktop |
| | 3 or 4 word description, explanation of why you exist |
| | pitching is anytime you are trying to seek agreement |
| | 10 slides; 20 minutes; 30 pt font size |
| | Make evangelists, not sales |
| | this. this is the $ slide. |
| | Let a hundred flowers blossom |
| | Don't be afraid when someone starts to do something you didn't expect |
| | Figure out why they are coming to your msg |
| | The message here: be open |
| | Don't try to convert atheists |
| | Bonus: don't let the bozos grind you down |
| | The dangerous bozos? The ones that seem/are powerful and important. |
Monday, March 20, 2006Trying to play with template
I think that I'm going to use this as the place that I do liveblogging of sessions and (possibly) keep a variety of meeting notes. Again, trying to understand this.
That attempt didn't work but mostly because I didn't work through the details. Back to the default. Which is just fine.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006Building a distributed directory with OPML
I get how OMPL can help me to construct reading lists. I get how I can use it to bundle my RSS feeds, podcast feeds, cat feed and hat feed, so that I can move from one aggregator/reader to another. I like OPML for that reason and that is the primary way I interact with it.
What I'm trying to figure out, though, is how I can use OPML to construct a distributed directory. I'm specifically interested in managing a directory of nonprofit blogs. How can OPML allow that to more easily happen -- giving sections to experts/individuals/organizations who have a vested interest in keeping one or more of the directory sections going?
Clearly, a part of what has to be solved in simply education -- a proof of concept and then explicit instructions for maintaining such a directory.
Now I just have to work out how to do it.
Live blogging tool?
It seems like an OPML blog might be a very nice way to take notes during a conference session. The ability to move around the outline and easily rearrange gives a very nice funcitonality. Also, having multiple outline windows open so that you can have marginal notes that go into another post seems valuable for live blogging.
Thursday, March 09, 2006So each new entry give you a new bullet point.
And I like the ability to drag and drop in the outline.
Still trying to get this
And I certainly understand why I might outline
What's the benefit of blogging with it?
I see that I can write with it
Wednesday, March 08, 2006And I'm trying.
Okay. I've played around with this before but didn't really dig deep. It's time to try to understand.
|
