In my previous post I talked about “Peer Production” and the synergy that can be derived from working with a group of your peers. As I thought about the topic I ran into some interesting conversations around the net about bloggers getting together for meetings, bike rides and just plain fun. Here are some of the ones that I found.
Fellow bloggers Adrian Trenholm and Jason Womak met up in London along with 4 other bloggers for a bike ride through the streets of town. Jason Comments…
I must say that my latest weekend in London goes down in history books as one of the best ever! Just taking the slice of life, 1 October, from 6:30am until 11am by itself is something I will remember for always.
The guys put together something special. As we had scheduled, the meeting in front of the Marriott Park Lane hotel (literally across the street from Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park) occurred at 7am. From there the 5 of us rode to pick up Ben in/near Putney.
Our ride took us down/along the King’s Road, and then out to Richmond Park. What a fantastic day it was! Six of us guys, in a line, riding through the roads of London, I have to admit a few times I laughed out loud to myself.
“What are you laughing at?” someone asked.
“I can’t believe it. By all counts, this day shouldn’t have happened!” I said…
Wow a bloggers meeting with exercise too…
As I was reading Adrian’s blog I realized we have something in common, we both use the Wordpress template “Blix” and we both have been talking about a redesign. Well Adrian’s post gave me the incentive to actually set a concrete date for the new design of this blog. His post brought up an interesting milestone that I didn’t know about…
Since Jason reminded me of the power of setting a date and sticking to it, I realised that I have been procrastinating about the redesign of this site. My use of the Blix theme from King Cosmonaut - excellent though it is - was only meant to be temporary, yet months later my custom design is still no more than a flicker in Photoshop’s eye.
To give myself a date to aim for, I have signed up for the November 1st CSS Reboot. This is a kind of online festival in which 700 or more site owners will relaunch their sites with shiny new designs. I will be among them.
I will be among them too Adrian…
As I searched farther into the depths of blogdom I ran into a group of like minded individuals giving an award to one of my favorite bloggers, Rosa Say. Her Book, Managing With Aloha has been selected for a 2005 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Award!
Congratulations Rosa.
As I clicked up my blogging news source I realized this weekend was the GodBlog Convention 2005 held at Biola University here in Southern California. It will be interesting to see what kind of concensus a group of Christian bloggers will come to.
Speaking of Church based bloggers, Scott Hodge
went out into the streets of Chicago and shot the On The Streets of Chicago Video. Scott is one of the funniest guys I know and his question “What do you look for in a date?,” made for hilarious fun. Be sure to check it out.
And finally one of my blogging mentors, Steve Pavlina has decided to turn off blog comments on his very popular site. I for one miss this as his posts always brought up some great conversations and I really enjoyed being part of the fray. Steve explains…
I’m grateful for all the comments people have posted on this blog over the past year. I agree that your comments added tremendously to the quality of the blog. If I could install a comment co-processor in my brain, I’d certainly continue them. But for now I have to make due with my humanity, and this sometimes requires sacrificing what’s good or even great for what’s best.
Hopefully Steve will find a way to open up the conversation again.
Some great peer conversations this weekend. It is amazing to me how much community there is in blogging.
Keep up the great work everybody…
John
6 Responses to 'Peer Conversations'
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Odd bit of synchronicity there, but I read today’s post and thought I would say “hi” given that I am mentioned in passing. I was one of the other bloggers out on the London Ride with Jason and Adrian. In fact, although there were six of us at the start, two of the guys had come via the NSA (National Speakers Association) prompted, I think by an email from Jason. The other blogger, Ben (www.bensaunders.com) is the youngest guy ever to walk to the North Pole, and is currently in training for a long walk to the South Pole next year. Overall it was fascinating how it all worked. None of us had met Jason before and there was a huge amount of trust that it would all actually happen - trust that had been built up by blogging. So nice to bump into a mention of the gathering here and good luck with the new design!
Mahalo nui John, for your note of congratulations!
Your post is a timely one for me as well, in regard to these thoughts of our global blogging connections and “Peer Production” — thank you for pointing out that ChangeThis manifesto; I’m eager to read it.
Rosa
Thanks for the Reply Mark. Sounds like a fascinating ride. It’s funny how much more of a town you actually see when you walk or ride a bike versus driving in a car. It sounds like there was a LOT of talent in that group.
As a Toastmaster I realize how much of a privilege it is to be part of the National Speakers Association. One of my upcoming goals is to put enough qualifying speeches under my belt that I would qualify for membership.
I’ve heard of blogger meetups in Portland, Oregon and now England. Hopefully we can put something together in Southern California sometime.
Cheers,
John
Thanks for the reply, Rosa. I have found “ChangeThis.com” to be a very inspirational resource. I am working on a thesis myself that I hope to turn into a manifesto in the future. Congrats to you and Bren and others who have successfully submitted manifestos for publication. I wonder if this could be construed as “manifest destiny?”
John
I attended GodBlogCon and speaking for myself, I don’t think there was any intent to create “consensus” among Christian bloggers there. While some wanted to forge alliances, most of us simply want to share Christ in our own unique ways. Under-represented among us were our fellow Christian bloggers who are politically liberal. But many seemed to be intent on having them strongly present at our next gathering.
We all believe, I think, that blogging represents a tremendous opportunity to link directly with people apart from the insulation of conventional media. That’s exciting!
I’m marking your site.
Mark Daniels
Thanks for the reply and update Mark. I find that blogging really opens up a great conversation with people from all over the world. I agree with you that blogging represents a tremendous opportunity outside of the conventional media to link up with like minded people. One consensus that I think most anyone can draw is that blogging is here to stay!
I find your blog to be very interesting. I will be bookmarking your site and I would encourage others to do the same.
John