Category: BlogHer

Tsunami Revisited: Evelyn Rodriguez

(This is a duplicate that occurred while I was using a new plug-in. I’m leaving it up in case someone is linking to it.)

Getting to know Evelyn Rodriguez, who translated surviving last year’s tsunami into something personal for those of us light years away, was one of the best parts of BlogHer for me; even better was the late afternoon we spent in Palo Alto a couple of days later. I’ve been incredibly remiss in not mentioning her anniversary trip back to Thailand, where she came so close to losing her life. This time, Evelyn’s  journalistic mission is no accident. — she’s on the scene as a solo journalist, also as a participatory journalist and a citizen journalist as long as we’re tossing terms around.. (Yes, I still shudder at the cj description but I’ll honor others’ choices.)

Evelyn explains: "I’m collecting stories of resiliency, growth, faith, and grassroots action – and whatever unfolds once actually there. I’ll offer (and hopefully via in-kind donations leave behind equipment) to teach locals to tell their own first-person stories in their own words on their own blogs long after I’m gone. … I’ll delve into how people are rebuilding emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. I believe their stories can teach all of us and shed light for anyone confronting with loss in their own lives. And now with Katrina and worldwide disasters in Guatemala, Mexico and Pakistan/India, it seems all the more relevant to learn from those thriving post-tsunami."

You can follow her journey through her blog Crossroad Dispatches. And you can give yourself a (insert holiday of your choice) present by supporting Evelyn’s efforts via the tipjar or Paypal (less admijnistrative cost for her), as I have.

Blog Day 2005 (squeezing in under the wire)

Metrobloggers: A collection of city-specific blogs.

Making Light: I don’t read this New York-based blog often enough. Eclectic; often amusing and insightful. Some good Hurricane Katrina coverage.

Global Voices Weblog: Making the world smaller by connecting us to each other. Pick any country and browse; you’ll find as many blogs to follow as you have time.

Arse Poetica: Thoughtful. Striking photos. Political. BlogHer.

NEGROPhile: Link blog with commentary on all things African-American. Intelligent. Almost always interesting.

You Can Go Home Again

zinnias

I’m back at home base in University City, Mo., after a trip that got so long and complicated friends have sworn to make an intervention if I try something like it again. For the record, between July 25 and Aug. 5 I went from St. Louis to Philadelphia (CTAM), Santa Monica (ContentNext mixer), Los Angeles (MES), Santa Clara (BlogHer), Palo Alto (rest day/Mobile Monday), San Francisco, Las Vegas (family time/father‘s birthday/shoe show) and finally home Thursday in time for a late dinner with my favorite editor.

I owe many of you apologies for dropping out of touch for several days. I hit a not-too-rational point where I felt compelled to finish my OJR piece on BlogHer before I could do anything other than my work on paidContent.org. The article went live earlier today, I’ve taken a very deep breath and now it’s time to make my re-entry. If you haven’t heard from me yet, you will soon.

As I thought, writing about BlogHer turned out to be daunting for many reasons. Left to my own devices, I’d still be writing, editing, rewriting.  Robert Niles, thanks for the patience and the encouragement; Diana Day, as always, I owe you.

One of the issues I ran into is the difference between writing about something as it happens or writing about it in a changeable/updatable space compared to writing something essentially published once. I also knew that by the time we published those who wanted to follow the conference already would be doing so through the often-amazing live blogs, post-BlogHer posts and the like but that many of my readers would be coming to the story cold. Plus, I’ve already written about a lot of the issues that cropped up during the weekend so didn’t want to cover a lot of that ground again. If you’re looking for blogging v. journalism redux, skip it.

Voice was another issue. In the end, to be true to the experience it had to be in the first person.

About the live bloggers, as frustrated as I was about the WiFi un-access, knowing that cadre was doing the job gave me the freedom to sit back a little. I still took a lot of notes but I wasn’t worried about getting it all down and transmitting it. Thank you for the breathing space.

For more than my take, I urge you to spend some time with the other BlogHer participants.  You can check my link blog, too. Via Nick Bradbury’s Feed Demon newsreader, I spent hours of plane time wending through the posts of those who offer full-text RSS feeds. It felt like taking two journeys at once.

(That’s also how I found out about Nick’s pending surgery. Nick, good thoughts and prayers for your recovery.)

I’m sure I’ll hear about anything I got wrong. Just to show I learned something at BlogHer, you’re welcome to let me know what I got right, too, here or at OJR — and please link.  Yes, it’s still hard to ask.

Post-BlogHer

I’m amending "you can never be too rich or too thin" to "you can never have enough wireless." I couldn’t post much yesterday because the wireless networks at BlogHer were overwhelmed by traffic. The few times I could get a connection felt like winning the lottery.

Despite the wireless blogjam, plenty of words got through yesterday during the inaugural BlogHer. So many people have written so much already, in fact, that what was already an incredibly daunting task — writing about BlogHer for OJR — seems even more so now that I’m reading what everyone else has to say. The goal is to post the OJR coverage later this week. I’m also looking
into starting a wiki to continue the conversation started in the
journalism session. 

To my tablemates at Nicolino’s last night, I’ll never be able to listen to opera again without thinking of you. Nancy White — weren’t you in charge of the lyrics for Kum-Blog-Yah? Skye, Aisha (hope I have the spelling right) — please let me know how to find you. David, you were incredibly patient. Susie/Susannah Gardner, great to get some time with you. Amy Gehren, fun to finally meet in person.

Lisa, Elisa, Renee, Jory, Chris  and many, many more — thanks for the organizing, the hospitality and for making traveling with a broken foot easier to bear.

I’m off to Palo Alto for a day or two. Seemed like a good place to get a lot of work/thinking done before heading to San Francisco, Las Vegas and finally home. More later.