Paul captured this moment brilliantly in text and digital stills here of David Wilcox and Nick Booth video blogging each other. I had been thinking it was an isolated moment of geekily recursive silliness, but today I got a ping from Lucy Hooberman, also from the UK, about a post she wrote that observes that so many people are live blogging conferences that it produces a lot of documentation of the event.
I especially liked this quote from Reuters Chief Executive, Tom Glocer:
The technique (Live blogging) finally seems to have caught on in Davos. Everyone is blogging about what is going on in Davos to the point that no one has time to talk face-to-face anymore because they need to rush off and record the last great thought.
Inviting bloggers to Davos is a good thing as it means those not attending in person can participate in the discussion and it makes the whole thing a bit more informal. But by the time I arrived on Wednesday, there were already one million blog hits for “Davos 2007.” At this rate, we’ll all be able to stay home, prevent climate change and just send our avatars to Switzerland.
This calls to mind a debate in the educator community about some years ago about computer-mediated experiences - and how it is a (mostly) bad thing. Has this view been changed by the pervasive Internet access?
Lucy goes on to muse about the etiquette of interupting a blogger while they are live blogging:
People are blogging so much do they have time to talk to anyone, or each other? I noticed this first at TED last March. Is there a polite way to interrupt a blogger to say hello, or even try and talk? Guess you have to send a comment! At Netsquared last May Ethan Zuckerman spoke on a panel and blogged brilliantly at the same time - so he did have time for a chat in the corridor. I think I am onto something.
And back to David Wilcox's posts about blogger actvists preparing for a conversation. So, the question isn't should we put down our social media tools and have a conversation? I think it is how do we use our social media tools to extend the conversation and bring in other s both online and offline.
Music in video: Wonder Drums by porchcat
I'm glad we didn't completely disappear up our own blogs! but I'm glad for the link to Lucy's blog - I then went to the Mentoring Worldwide site and found her post on the I-See-T report which was encouraging. I've just been thinking while I catch up on scanning through my Bloglines about the time spent/saved blogging in particular compared to email. As a blogging expert do you find you communicating through you blog a more efficient and effective way of communicating than email? I think one of the barriers to blogging is seeing it as an extra overhead in addition to wading through and answering emails, but I bet your answer to a lot of queries is 'look on the blog' - it's searchable, available all the time, you can post documents, pictures and links up there instead of emailing them to people every time they ask... am I right or am I dreaming of blog utopia? Let's face it people use email all the time for stuff that would be much better done elsewhere, it's just they haven't tried it or haven't seen it in practice.
Posted by: Paul | February 01, 2007 at 01:55 AM
I wonder whether, in terms of other people who are physically present and trying to get your attention, live blogging gives a blogger a get-out-of-rudeness-free card, the way talking on a cell phone apparently does?
Posted by: Dave F. | February 01, 2007 at 06:58 AM
One question I have always had about the ways in which face to face conversations get extended into social media (whether it be live blogging, flickr, or, my favorite pre-web social media, IRC) is that two things are true: it takes something away from the event itself (because at least one person who could be talking is busy typing) as it's happening, and the resulting conversation seen out in the world is very diluted.
This has lead me to think about how to do this better. I have to admit to liking to read liveblogging of some events - although I also like more distilled summaries that have been produced after the fact.
An interesting intermediate is the use of Wikis - which provide richness during an event, as well as a way for people to be involved remotely. It also provides a way to work with content generated at the event later.
But, there are times, I think, when it makes sense to actually make everyone put their laptops away, and there are times to have lots of liveblogging, IRC, etc. going. It's just a matter understanding what is most appropriate in a given situation.
Posted by: Michelle Murrain | February 01, 2007 at 09:58 AM
I have a live event coming up in May and this has me thinking of the possibilities, opportunities, and drawbacks.
We are thinking of streaming and recording the event and yet getting real time feedback from the audience would be cool and challenging. Hmmm...
Posted by: Greg Balanko-Dickson | February 02, 2007 at 11:38 AM
Interesting thought. On the other hand, I don't travel so my nightly block reading and writing is not just a relaxing time after a day's outdoor physical labor but a chance for me to meet and share with people I would never otherwise know. The internet has brought the world to my doorstep in a carefully controlled flow that I can adjust as needed.
Posted by: Walter Jeffries | February 03, 2007 at 03:31 PM
I agree - it's absolutely about how we use the social technologies to extend our conversation - each new media adds to, but rarely supplants existing media, thus providing a greater menu of choices for interaction
Posted by: Jerry | April 12, 2007 at 02:53 PM