Today at South By Southwest: My first session was "Why The Web Matters" by David Weinberg. As usual, the most interesting thing that I took away was something that was only touched on peripherally. I call it "Why Weblogs Matter." In a single phrase, it is this:
Weblogs are interesting not when you tell people about your world, but rather when you tell how the world looks from where you are.That's assuming it's a weblog for general consumption, of course, not one like this one. That's an important distinction for me, and I'm going to make a conscious effort to go after the latter part above, not the former.
Incidentally, I am writing this from another panel at SXSW through the power of 802.11b. That one isn't quite as interesting. "Doing Good Online: Innovative Ideas From Non-Profits on the Internet." NPR.org webmaster, EFF's Cory Doctorow, and a woman working on web development in Senegal talking about what they do, but not really saying anything that can be taken away to other non-profit activity, like, oh, the ones I'm supposed to be working with. Oh well. At the very least, this is a very clear connection to my real job that got me this pass. I'm going to try to keep up a daily log; I'm going to be busy for the next three days.