PDA Blog Workshop
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/21/2005 - 20:57
If you are a blogger that attended the PDA Blogging workshop, please add a comment below, including a link to your blog, so we can all stay in touch with one another.
We were there, thanks!
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 01/22/2005 - 05:54.We came to the workshop and want to thank all of you for your hard work and good ideas. We really enjoyed it. You are an engaging speaker. A few ideas for improving this workshop are 1) delineate in advance a discusssion of a) what blogs are b) how they can be used by readers and c) how they can be used by writers. Not everyone needs to have a blog, and readers/activists can use good blogs to liberate themselves from mainstream media, but are overwhelmed by the choices. The recurring question was a concern for wasting time, so give people a list of five good blogs that allow them to get reliable, verifiable news. Include the biggies like Kos and Political Strategy, and add some of the more commentary oriented, discussions forums as well. 2) Use overheads you have prepared in advance or a Powerpoint and have the ideas set out in advance according to the principles of good public speaking (three points, tell 'em what you are gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell'em what you told 'em.) TEACH people what you want them to know and then set out three good discussion points (such as... 1) Pros and cons of the blogosphere; 2)Creative use of blogs in the movement with people telling their success/failure stories and 3)How to be a good blog citizen.
One peevey point: Stop using the word geek unless you are wildly positive about geeks. Everything the guy said earlier in the day about people not understanding Hip Hop applies to computer people. Be wildldy positive about computer geeks. We need them and at this point, the Christian Colaition has unleashed the firey fury of their geeks against our geeks. Let's stand by our geeks!
Just some ideas. Contact me at walmas@gmail.com or jml16@cornell.edu
Various responses
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/22/2005 - 08:33.Since I referred to myself as an ubergeek, I was hoping that from the context it would be clear that I am wildly positive about geeks. In my circles, calling someone a geek is one of the highest compliments possible.
I did design this workshop to be very loosely structured since it was unclear how many people would come, what the timing would be, or what the experience level of the participants would be.
Actually, the first thing that we talked about was what blogs are and how they can be used, but that was before you showed up, and I returned to this subject several times as new people continued to stream in.
Likewise, due to the uncertainty of the workshop I decided against powerpoint sides, or other presentation materials. As noted, it would have been difficult with the constant ebb and flow of participants to stay with a structure a presentation as a slideshow presents.
As to 'how to be a good blog citizen', that is a topic I am very interested in, and there is an interesting conference about it in Boston this weekend. I was hoping we would get time to explore this topic a little, but there was a much greater interest and need to get some of the basics for many people that hadn't blogged and wanted to start blogging.
All of this said, thank you for your comments, and especially for adding in your following post a link to your website. I hope a lot of people will visit it and get ideas.
Checking in after attending your PDA blogging seminar
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/23/2005 - 02:00.Hi, Aldon, this is Peter Rush, great to meet you in Washington. You said to check with you about civicspace, so I'm checking. Can you send me the info we discussed about how to have a combined general website and blog all in one? Peter peterrush@adelphia.net
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/19/2006 - 07:47.
Oops, forgot to add our blog
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 01/22/2005 - 06:01.It is humble, but works for what we need it to, and it was put up and running by a twelve year old, and the fact that he does this has brought a LOT of kids in Jr high into noticing what we are doing. Some of them vote in '08. As a mom who is also an organizer for a political action netowrk in Ithaca, NY, I wanted to find a way to get our group inter-generational from the start and do what the Christian Coalition does so well: get our kids BEFORE THEY CAN VOTE so we aren't running around trying to register them and bring them up to speed on the issues. WE HAVE VALUES AS PROGRESSIVES and we can teach 'em early! Having my son be our techie has been a good start in that direction. Let's grow our own techies and our own leaders! I am a proponenet of using simple, free software, and getting young people involved by asking for their help.
Now, with no further ado:
http://ithacaactionnetwork.blogspot.com
Links
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/22/2005 - 08:50.At the workshop, I mentioned a few different links that I will put up here as well.
For places to get started:
www.livejournal.com
www.xanga.com
www.blog-city.com
www.blogger.com
www.typepad.com
MovableType
Yahoo 360
Microsoft Spaces
Blogs of panelists:
Aldon: Orient Lodge
Nick: NickLewis
Roxanne: Rox Populi
Terrance: Republic of T
The Progressive Blog Alliance:
http://pbahq.smartcampaigns.com
Sites to use to get traffic:
http://del.icio.us
Blog Explosion
Blog Clicker
It was very nice to meet you, Aldon, thanks
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/23/2005 - 02:54.The Huggy Jim Chronicles
I am aligned with Peter in also checking out civicspacelabs.org, so far it seems to have major potential.
blog time
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 01/25/2005 - 02:33.I enjoyed the workshop. I am interested in getting linked to all the other blogs at pbahq.smartcampaigns.com. I find I don't have time to explore blogs enough to find which ones I like, and writing posts for my own can take me quite awhile too. I do peruse dailykos. I would like to find other blogs about reframing the progressive message to help our values shine through, since that is the angle of my http://livingroomthinktank.blogspot.com. maybe I'll just search a topic in google and add "blog" into the search to try to find blogs on certain topics.
Susan Baylies
Other blogs
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 01/26/2005 - 07:22.I have also received emails about other blogs from people at the Progressive Democrats of America Summit. In particular, I would like to highlight dancewater which has some good comments about the summit.
At the summit, I mentioned http://del.icio.us which is a public bookmarking system. I have been adding the blogs I find here at http://del.icio.us/tag/PDAmerica. Please check there for other blogs.
I am also speaking with Nick to make sure that any of these blogs that aren't already, and want to be, become part of the Progressive Blog Alliance
Enjoyed the workshop, started a blog
Submitted by Alexis Adair on Sun, 02/13/2005 - 23:14.Now all I have to do is get some traffic to it :p
I'm looking at joining blogexplosion, do you or Nick or PBA have a way to be the referrer so you get the relevant credits? I don't want to waste them or give them to someone random.
I went to the pbahq.smartcampaigns.com today and it seems to be inactive or moved? About 3 down on google there's something called Blog Zoo(?) that claims to be the new location for the Progressive Blog Alliance? I wasn't sure what was going on there...
Anyway, I've started my blog, but need to build traffic. Have joined Daily Kos and DU, but haven't had much opportunity to post there. Thought I joined PBA, but haven't seen much result from it, and now I can't find the site...
I met BlogDiva of Culture Kitchen at a meetup last week. She seems cool. Her site mentions that having different categories for posts increases traffic. I'd love to find out more information about that. I need to add Aldon's and Nick's blogs to my links, too. (I never met Roxanne or the other guy, but I'll add them too once I've had a chance to visit their blogs).
I hope we can work from a lot of different angles and through various media to get the Democratic message out, and the blogs are a good place to be. Again, it was great to meet Aldon and Nick at the blog workshop (I came to the later one). Hope to stay in touch in the future.
Best,
Alexis
aka Clarity
aboutamerica.blogspot.com
BlogExplosion, etc.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 02/14/2005 - 16:56.BlogAZoo is a click exchange. You get people to visit your site by visiting their sites. You also get credits for referrals and the listing you found was about referring people through PBA.
For click exchange, I recommend Blog Explosion, Blog Clicker, and BlogAZoo. There are links to them from the lower left hand corner of my site. Of course, these all point to my referrals.
I'll also add the site to a few lists so more people are likely to find it. Good luck with your blog.