[8:54 a.m.] The drive down for BlogSavannah last night was littered with radar traps. Amber and I had trouble sleeping last night.
Now we’re sitting in Bryson Hall just off Chippewa Square, waiting for things to kick off. I’m no architecture buff, so I’ll just tell you the place has dull white tiles on the floor, ornate metal rails painted black like balcony rails in New Orleans (maybe that’d be French-style?), and yellow and off white painted walls with panels and trim.
Everybody seems to have a camera. The crowd is still thin, and I’ve spotted no less than seven still cameras and one ginormous video camera.
[9:01 a.m.]: One fella that Amber and Sherry are speaking with is talking about how much money he makes consulting, and it makes me wonder why I have a day job. I could do that.
[9:07 a.m.] Drew says 111 people registered for this. It’s doubtful I’ll be able to live blog the whole thing because there aren’t any power outlets at the table.
[9:11 a.m.] This is the part where they go over ground rules and “what is an unconference.” This is the part where I hand the laptop off to Amber to let her put up a post. bbl
[9:37 a.m.] Phil Sellers from iTourSavannah is giving the Podcasting 101 session. We’re recording it with the Zoom H4 since there aren’t any mics rigged up. It’s behind him, so hopefully the sound will come out okay. Phil is talking about a tour of Bryson Hall and the surrounding square that he made this morning to demonstrate how easy podcasting is. Good example.
[9:53 a.m.] I just gave an answer about fair use of music in a podcast, and I hope I didn’t sound stupid. I backtracked somewhat and told people to just do a Google search for the words “podcast fair use” and click the first link. The first few explanations were really off, so I hope people paid attention to the last part.
[10:03 a.m.] FYI, if you’re here and you’re male, the door to the bathroom doesn’t lock. When I went, I had a flashback to the fourth grade.
Also, this dude from Evoca needs to shut up. Phil needs to reign this sales pitch in. This is an unconference, not an infomercial.
[10:08 a.m.] Phil, please stop jerking Evoca off. kthxbye.
[10:15 a.m.] Phil is making a good point that the neatest podcasting isn’t sitting around in your garage pretending to be a radio station, but in carrying around a small portable recorder and recording conversations with people in everyday settings.
[10:19 a.m.] Most people don’t need prompters. Disagree there.
Now the talk has shifted to how to monetize a podcast. Getting a sponsor is nice.
Sherry is making a good point that people can listen but totally zone out, so there is a minimum expectation of editing. What to edit and what not to edit out should probably be a session by itself.
[10:26 a.m.] Amber just made a spectacular point about the whole point of (OH GOD HERE IT COMES) Web 2.0 is that one of its best (and underutilized) uses of podcasting is to provide unfiltered access to government meetings to let people participate who previously were unable to. Now we break.
[10:45 a.m.] Now we’re sitting in and recording Business Blogging 101, led by Chris Cree. We’re in the small room upstairs on the balcony, and it’s filled to the brim.
[10:56 a.m.] There’s a good discussion about blog commenting for business sites. A key fear businesses have is losing control of the conversation about a product. Well, you’ve lost control of it either way, so you may as well have it on your web site in a blog where you can watch it.
[11:04 a.m.] And possibly influence it. Good point Chris.
[11:14 a.m.] There is a lot of interest in that topic, and the conversation goes on. A lot of it is remedial for most people reading this, but it’s good stuff for people who aren’t real familiar with blogs.
[11:27 a.m.] I apologize that my liveblogging for this session hasn’t been better. I’ve been alternating between soaking in the conversation and reading Bloglines. Just listen to the podcast when it goes up.
[11:35 a.m.] There’s a cameraman in here recording the P.R. and blogging session. Our recorder is plugged in somewhat precariously, and he’s standing close to the wire. It’s making me nervous. The whole room is claustrophobic.
[11:48 a.m.] Interesting discussion of role of blogging vs. media vs. PR. Will make a good podcast. Not making great live blogging right now.
[11:50 a.m.] Pushing quality? Pushing depth? Pushing technology? WTF? This conversation just veered waaaaaaaaay off. The people want to give a seminar, not have a discussion. Very typical old world lack of understanding of how a two-way conversation works.
Also, the word “credibility” keeps coming up. They talk about who is a credible source versus who isn’t. A lot of what’s causing people to read blogs is smelling the bullshit coming from P.R. companies and news sources, i.e. - REGULAR PEOPLE DON’T VIEW MAINSTREAM NEWS SOURCES AS CREDIBLE.
[12:04 p.m.] Off to lunch at Locos!
[2:14 p.m.] And we’re back. Well, sort of. We’ve walked into the center of the blogging for the media session, which appears to be sort of in shambles. We expect people will be over their post-lunch malaise by the time the women in blogging session starts at 2:45.
[2:30 p.m.] Now Chris Miller from the Creative Coast Initiative is leading session. Or, he will, after EVERYONE IN THE ROOM gives a brief bio. Jeebis. Please, if you ever run a session at a (un)conference, please don’t do this. This is as exciting as pulling teeth.
[2:42 p.m.] My intro went like “I’m Rusty and I’ve been blogging in various places for three or four years, and co-founded the Georgia Podcast Network with Amber.”
Now, I am perfectly willing to own up to my comments to anybody after the fact, but I already learned my lesson from drunk blogging not to call attention to them as they happen.
[2:46 p.m.]Check 200+ photos in the Flickr pool. Here we are!
[3:01 p.m.] I’ve lost track of what’s going on this session. Amber tells me it’s a big sales pitch. Our conversation at lunch was much more interesting, with the most memorable part (to me)… hold on…
I think Chris just said bloggers are slow and ignorant.
Anyway, yeah. The most interesting part of lunch was the idea of collaborative competition, a phrase that’s come up in several things I’ve read lately. Think Yahoo, Google and Cingular on the same stage when Apple announced the iPhone.
[3:13 p.m.] There’s a guy from SavannahNow talking. He says that in eight months, with 200 to 300 posts per week on their site, they’ve deleted a total of two comments. That’s pretty good.
[3:40 p.m.] Now we’re almost an hour off schedule and in the women in blogging session. Amber is preachin’ about lack of recognition that female bloggers receive.
[3:45 p.m.] Gennie the session leader throws out the theory that men receive more traffic b/c they write about things rather than about their experiences. Amber doesn’t buy it, and says so.
[3:48 p.m.] Quote of the day: “She keeps a blog. It’s rather humorous.” Also, Dooce’s name was just mispronounced Dookie.
[3:54 p.m.] Gennie once called a city council member a titty baby on her blog. The discussion has turned to things people regretted saying. 9/11 just got mentioned. That happened, what, almost seven years ago? How long did South Park say we have to wait before a tragedy becomes funny? Yeah, it was shitty, but I’m tired of it being the frame of reference for everything.
[4:12 p.m.] Nevermind, new quote of the day: “Fools’ names and monkeys’ faces are always seen in public places.”
[4:15 p.m.] Amber just totally smacked the organizer of the conference down for taking up too much time with his comment in Gennie’s session. That’s how unconferences work.
Despite going on waaaaaaay too long, he did bring up a good points about public and private space, and that there is a whole new world of work available for intellectual property lawyers.
Here’s the link to Gennie’s blog.
My battery is about gone, so this is probably it kids. Selah.
