Well, I’m going to be sitting all day in a meeting of considerable interest. There are about 15 of us here, and I brought my computer along on the off-chance that I might get connected. Silly me. Of course I’d be connected. It is a room full of bloggers! It is a Symposium by the Institute for Future of the Book.
Here is their statement of purpose:
Over the past several months, The Institute for the Future of the Book has been hatching a new project to encourage academics with expert knowledge and a distinctive voice to use blogs and other internet-based vehicles to step beyond the boundaries of the academy to reach out to a broader public audience. The genesis of the project was a series of conversations with Juan Cole, whose Informed Comment blog we all consult daily to find out what’s really happening in Iraq. This site serves as a planning stage for a meeting on November 11th in Los Angeles where the conversation will continue in a slightly wider circle.
They invited me along, and it is being held in the neighbourhood (Annenberg Center for Communication…yes, I found it this time)..it looked interesting, so why not go? So I am here. I’ll tell you more as time permits.
Who is here?
Manan Ahmed, Christine Boese, Danah Boyd, John Seely Brown, Brian Carroll, Juan Cole, Jenny DeMonte, Brian Drolet (link, link), Justin Hall, John Holbo, Clifford Johnson, John Mohr, PZ Myers, Larry Pryor, Karen G. Schneider, Bob Stein, Ben Vershbow. [Update: Virginia Kuhn joined us later in the day.]
I’ll link these names to their blogs later. [Update: done] [Update: John Seely Brown could not make it.]
Everybody is typing, so I expect that there are blogs all over with similar posts to this going up right now!
This is such fun.
-cvj
(P.S. I’ve never seen so many mac powerbooks on one table…..)
November 11th, 2005 at 11:57 am
Looking forward to the possibility of some semi-real time interactions. How interesting it would be if your posts from on-site generated feedback that then affected/directed what you and your peers are doing in the room. One of the key aspects of cybernetics/complex systems is their utilization of feedback in effective ways. I think these are the types of powerful opportunities that this medium will allow, that transcend what can be accomplished in print or any other 1-way medium. Sounds like a lot of fun.
Elliot
November 11th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Elliot: well, yes, but… I think there’s a tendence to repeatedly forget that one of the real strengths of much of the online world rests with it NOT being real time.
Back in late 1999, close to the top of web mania, I remember economic commentators propounding how great it would be, Real Soon Now, for consumers to be able to interact in real time with an online sales force, rather than having to submit their orders through some boring form. My own thought was: yeah right, that would definitely kill any competitive advantage over old-fashioned ways of doing business. If you can’t automate, and have to keep a full sales force online, plus the massive broadband infrastructure required for real time operation, where’s the savings? True enough, five years on, you are still submitting your Amazon orders through some boring form, not by pointing a webcam at a live salesperson.
Same principle for blogs. What’s great about them is that they can be operated at the convenience of everybody involved. Sean can post something leftist in his pyjamas, late at night, and I can dutifully dissent early in the morning, many time zones away, perhaps right after returning from an early jog, before hitting the shower. Semi-real time interaction would be much more demanding on our schedules, reducing the comparative advantage of this medium over others. If we have to agree on a time and place, and perhaps even be all dressed up and presentable, we might as well run for office or something. And how much fun is that?
November 11th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
Dissedent: Agreed that there are challenges (IM vs. email) as an example. But the fact that we have many more choices about the cycle time of the feedback loops makes for much more interesting possiblities. Let me pose a real world example: Lets assume a massive distributed bio-terrorist attack. Doesn’t this medium offer opportunities to potentially mitigate the threat that 1 way information delivery does not.
And I can still be on-line in real time in my PJs. (until of course the video cameras become the standard vs. text
)
Elliot
November 11th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
John Seely Brown isn’t here. He should be but he’s not.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Ah! that explains my miscounting…. thanks zephoria!
-cvj
November 11th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
In response to Dissident’s implication, I will have everyone know that each time I post I am elegantly attired in a bespoke suit I had tailored at Saville Row for just this purpose.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
Sean… I am shocked that you don’t wear a top hat….like I do. You’re just sloppily dressed -virtually naked- without it!
-cvj
November 11th, 2005 at 1:27 pm
I find that my monocle distorts my on-screen writing and my watch fob gets in the way of the keyboard. But I won’t remove them for anything!
November 11th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
http://www.backwash.com/content.php?jouid=5166
snacks anyone?
November 11th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
I believe in the early days of the BBC presenters were required to be appropriately dressed when broadcasting in the evening. Dinner jackets after 6pm please, chaps!
November 11th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
But those BBC presenters only wore DJs since there was no need for trousers, right?
November 11th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
It should also not be forgotten that BBC radio and newsreel presenters were once the standard bearers for that most cultured of accents, the cut-glass “Received Pronunciation.” The Beeb have a lovely little article on it here.
November 12th, 2005 at 1:22 am
Was this a “real time” conversation going on at one desk?
So what’s your mission, should you choose to accept it?
November 12th, 2005 at 1:56 am
It was an amazing conversation. I cannot begin to explain how interesting it was. And we were blogging, ichatting, and regular chatting all at the same time. All very meta, since the subject was blogs.
-cvj
November 12th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
[...] So as I mentioned yesterday, I was in a meeting. It was a meeting about blogging, and yes, some of us were indeed blogging while we talked and instant-messaged with each other about blogging. We were brought here by an email, out of the blue, from Bob Stein (of USC’s Interactive Media Division – I had no idea we had such interesting departments and people doing such interesting things! They do everything from courses on video game design, through multimedia in film, to communcations and networking technologies…..), and we came from all over the USA. [...]
September 13th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
[...] Here’s an April post announcing it from Cory himself. There he mentions his connection with Bob Stein’s Voyager company. Who’s Bob, you ask? He and his work was another pleasant discovery I made last year, in the context of academic blogging. He’s Director of research at the Institute for the Future of the Book, at the Annenberg Center for Communication, and also part of the Interactive Media Division. I blogged about meeting him, and the bloggers meeting here and here. It’s a really small world after all. [...]