TKC is more important than you

Actually, I don't claim to be more important than anyone but it was nice to leave the house yesterday in some way that was related to blogging . . . Which never happens for me.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education is having their conference (CASE VI) in Kansas City this week and I figured there was no better place to spread disinformation about blogging to educators and the public . . . Good thing I was invited!



I was on a panel with the lady who runs the blog for The Kaufman Foundation and columnist/blogger Jo Mannies who supplies most of the posts for the Political Fix blog at the St. Louis Post Dispatch website.

I was surprised because just like the Internet, I was hounded by anonymous comments from the crowd and everyone threw tomatoes at me, told me I was unethical, sexist, racist, a horrible person, human trash wrapped in (oily) skin, completely self-serving and without ethics as they walked out without listening.

Actually, that didn't happen.



It was a pretty great experience talking in front of a decent sized crowd of about 40 people regarding blogging and it's role in community building, making absolutely no money for my bloggy efforts, disseminating (mis)information, garnering nude photos of lonely middle-aged women, joking about local politicos and the reporters who love them so much along other stuff. Like most bloggers, like everybody . . . Pretty much all of the questions had the same theme: "How do I make my blog more successful than yours? Because obviously you suck and I could do better but I need your help."

I did my best to offer suggestions.

Mannies was interesting to listen to because she had no problem admitting that she reads other bloggers like Combest, Fired Up Missouri and The Source and even has the courage to link them in her blog unlike Greg "Damn Community Journalism" Reeves over at Crime Scene KC.

Still, I thought she had it wrong when she spoke of truth and breaking news and facts regarding the way people consume information via blogs -- Most journalists can't fathom the fact that few people care about politics or who broke what story or the value of the information they disseminate . . . Put simply, most columnists don't like admitting that their faces are most useful when lining litter boxes and they also don't like to know that people grab the info most important to them without much consideration of how they came by it or who published it first. The thing I try to get across in every conversation I have about blogging is that the breakthrough in this medium is that it is completely obvious that every bit of information contained in a blog is SUBJECTIVE. There is no myth of objectivity in anything that is published on a blog and, even better, blogging helps to point out that mainstream media sources are equally BIASED in all of their reporting . . . What I try to tell people, what this blog attempts to prove is that IT'S ALL OPINION and you are required, it's your responsibility to figure out for yourself what is right and wrong whereas I'm always amazed that every journalist I've spoken with somehow thinks they have a monopoly on "the truth." Also, half-naked hot ass white women don't hurt bloggy traffic either.

One of the best things about the conference was getting to talk with futurist David Zach. The guy had a captivating keynote address and seemed very interested in the whole bloggy thing. No homo. I've never met a futurist before and while the guy has some great insights about the role technology plays in our lives, I still couldn't get him to predict the upcoming lotto numbers.

All things considered, even though it cut into my nap time, I was fortunate to attend the conference, I learned a lot and it proved to me that we're all still earnestly working toward understanding the role that technology plays in communication other than simply facilitating masturbation and online hookups.