"Creativity on the web for all people" was the subtitle of a new media conference in Greensboro, NC last week. Called ConvergeSouth, it attracted
about 200 attendees, mostly bloggers, to A&T University, a historically black college that played an integral role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There were the usual suspects at the conference -- print and electronic journalists, activists, academics, and computer programmers, mostly white males. But there were
also a surprising number of teachers, poets, musicians, artists, and even a truck driver and home improver who blog. The gathering was racially and ethnically diverse.
With the new medium of weblogs, conversations don't end when face-to-face conferences end. A conference is only a beginning, a way to match names, faces, and blogs, to gain energy and enthusiasm through contagion, and continue the networking and learning online.
- Ed Cone, one of the chief conference organizers and Greensboro's "blogfather," offers a good overview.
- Ted Vaden of The News and Observer reports on the conference and reflects on how blogging is changing journalism, particularly on how blogging increases trust between journalists and readers. N&O Managing Editor Melanie Sill read his report and offered strong reactions, which have produced an important dialogue on her blog.
- Addressing Jay Rosen's comment that no journalist is yet using a blog to report in real time on a story he's working on, to engage audiences in real time: Jay should take a look at what Kerry Sipe of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot did in the fall of 2003, blogging live from the John Muhammad sniper trial. A story about Kerry's work appeared in the Carolina Communicator, by Ryan Pitts.
- Kevin Howarth of Atlanta posted his notes on new tools, led by Dave Winer; video-blogging, led by Amanda Congdon; Policing the Media, led by Duncan Black; Podcasting, led by Herb Everett.
- Amanda Congdon and the folks at Rocketboom video blogging mention the conference in their "daily vlog." Amanda also expressed some frustration on her personal blog with the intimidation many of us feel over frequently posting v-logs, which we view as too time-consuming. A v-log 101 might help. Amanda has also posted her Powerpoint slides from the session she led on video-blogging.
- Brian Russell of AudioActivism sums up the session on voices from Iraq, military blogging and reporting.
- Hossein Derakhshan (aka Hoder.com), a native Iranian now living in Toronto, was supposed to lead a session on building an international community through blogging, but he was turned away from the U.S. border and unable to attend, apparently because of racial or ethnic profiling. U.S. government customs officials often assume that all people with Middle East background attempting to enter this country are potential terrorists, even if they have Canadian citizenship.
- Tom Lassiter posted a panoramic shots of the post-ConvergeSouth cookout (tip of the hat to Dave Hoggard for this link).
- Brian Leon also posts photos from the conference, as well as his impressions.
- Ruby Sinreich of LotusMedia has posted blog links from participants in her session, "Using the Web for Political Activism."
- Dave Johnson of rollerweblogger.org observes: "The point of blog-based community building is to work towards the shared goals of a community whether that is to change local politics, share good writing, or build and support a great open source operating system."
- "Where's the Business Model Going?" Dave Johnson of rollerweblogger reported on this session.
- Billy Jones, the "blogging poet," has written "The ballad of ConvergeSouth" and is continuously updating news of people from the conference.
- Ben Hwang discusses the creative energy involved in blogging.
- ConvergeSouth was "a day of intense data-analysis after a yearlong experiment. Less than twelve months ago, I started this humble site with two goals: develop a more stringent writing discipline and get some more eyeballs on my work. Little did I know when I began posting my anecdotes, images and essays for public consumption that I was stumbling into a revolution, but that’s exactly what it feels like," writes Stewart Pittman, a highly talented photojournalist and TV videographer from Greensboro, on his blog, "Lenslinger." Check out his intriguing account, including photos with clever captions.
- Michael's Corner has posted a good description of how blogs differ from print and electronic media.
- Robert Reddick has posted video clips from "Is the Business Model Changing?"
- Sue Polinsky is tracking other posts on the conference. She and others also make keen observations about racial and ethnic diversity, not to mention that it was nice to see that this conference was attended by a far more diverse crowd of early adopters than the stereotype of male geeks or computer addicts with poor social skills.
- Tip of the hat to Kevin Howarth's Narcissistic Graffiti blog for gleaning this quote from Dave Slusher, which he dittos. In his Evil Genius Chronicles blog, Dave reflects on the conference's impact: ""For most of my youth and young adulthood, I was a self-proclaimed misanthrope. If pressed I’d say that I generally hated people, with just a few exceptions. I can’t claim that anymore, I have to admit that I love people. I felt verklempt most of the weekend with the power of people giving up a beautiful day to spend it talking to each other and me. Multiple times I teared up while talking to people about the power of empowering the audience. There was an energy that I don’t think anyone could deny and I’m extremely grateful that I was allowed to be part of it." Both Kevin and Dave write extremely well. I will return to their blogs often.
- Attendee blogs (partial list).
- Technorati blog search on Converge South.
