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The Triangle Blogger’s Conference is getting started.

We’re moving into the first Q&A session now, but we’ve already heard from three bloggers on the subject of community. (Photo credit to Scott Parkerson of smerpology.org)

Anton Zuiker opened the conference with a short bio on his experience in the peace corps. He likened the experience he had with the tribal chief banging a six foot “tam-tam” to what he did in calling for the conference. The chief bangs the tam-tam to call a meeting. Paul Jones and Anton rang the equivalent of a “tam-tam” to draw all of us here today – two examples of community – the classic community and the new online community.

Ben MacNeill of trixieupdate.com chronicles the the minutae of his daughter. He even tracks teh number of diapers changed and the occasional vomiting session. Ben asked a salient question, “What are the expectations of any reader that comes to a website”. Should you blog in realtime, or should you save up and publish on a schedule (once a day?).

This led him to the create the picture of the day This was an easy way to put up new content every day. Ben thinks this laid the groundwork for creating some stability, a publishing schedule. He now doesn’t feel the pressure of the daily grind.

Sid Stafford was up next. Sid is a sysadmin at UNC-CH. He brought up the topic of the Long-Tail. Sid says that he tries to build community by posting whatever he is thinking about. “Put something up each day and something will appear to the visitor”. He says that blogs go extinct without community – they need outgoing and incoming links. Most people cannot continue writing for very long periods of time without feedback (in the form of comments/links/community).

The third presenter in the first session was Ed Cone. (Photo of Ed Cone – credit to Brian Russell of AudioActivism.org) I’ve heard Ed speak before on the local NPR station about blogging. Ed encouraged bloggers to first try define what they are attempting to do, then write. In “casting your bread across the water” by writing and linking, “there is a payroff to your altruism”. He quoted some anonymous radio guy in saying, “Have a take, and don’t suck”.

There were quite a few interesting characters in the room, indcluding David Hoggard of Hogg’s Blog who stood up to ask a question draped in a very comfortable-looking bathrobe. After he finished his question, he put on a “disheveled southern lawyer” face and said, “Well, I can’t believe I’m the only one that blogs in a bathrobe”.

During the break, I took a minute to stretch and venture toward the facilities. When I arrived back at my seat, I joined a small circle for a quick chat. I looked to my right and who do I spy but Bob Young formerly of Redhat. Bob has now formed lulu.com and can be see sporting an orange hat. As the second session was beginning, Bob took a seat next to me. WillR came by showing off his copy of the Haloween RedHat release (the first one for all the non-geeks reading this). Are you interested in hearing Bob tell three stories about how RedHat got its name?

The second session was much more audience-driven, and I had high hopes. Ed Cone is a much better moderator in a session like this than was Dan Gilmor.

I’ve posted my raw notes for posterity and such.

Flickr has photos from the event.

Posted by Alvin P. Phillips |