Piedmont Blogger Conference

I attended the 1st ever Piedmont Blogger Conference this morning. This event was put together by Ed Cone and Dave Hoggard in just three weeks. What started as potentially 15 people turned out to be 60 people. I am not going to give you a play by play. I am sure others will do that. What I want to report is some of the quotes and some of the ideas that arose amid what turned out to be a controlled anarchy. There was no format, you spoke when you felt like speaking. There were three sessions about generalized topics. The first session dealt with politics. There were some politicians in attendance. One of the questions that arose was weather or not blogs would replace traditional campaigning. Todd Mormon, from Monkeytime, questions weather it will replace traditional campaigning. Others thought that traditional campaigning would not be replaced in any way. Controlling commenting on blogs became an issue. Matt Gross equated it to "giving people a can of spray paint". Ross Myers has a new idea about a three tiered system for commenting. About blogging at 2 in the morning and reading it the next morning wondering why, Ed Cone says, "Don't drink and blog". Raising money for campaigns got a lot of time. Matt Gross, who worked on the Howard Dean campaign, said "Just ask for it. If you don't ask for it then people probably won't give to your campaign."

In the second session the discussion changed to the blogging community and journalism. A lot of people had different views on what constitutes being a journalist, and if a blogger can be considered a journalist. Issues of libel and legalities came up. Very interesting stuff. The third session was a free form discussion on community, culture and art.

I didn't know what was going to happen when I arrived this morning. I know this conference was an overall success. The coolest part of it all was putting names and faces together. I also met a lot of cool people. Kudos to all involved. If you didn't show or couldn't make it, you missed a hell of an event.