Thursday, October 25, 2007

In Web 2.0, I'm a traffic cop.

A second of enlightenment...
While driving home from She's Geeky, I started processing the conference. Truthfully what I was doing was talking veryfast to myself about impressions and feelings and fears and reactions I was experiencing after the 2 days.

A lot happened. I'm talking myself into/out of video blogging. I'm changing my perception of place in geek gatherings. I'm claiming my space and giving myself permission to expand and change that space. I'm also a little sad that most of the people I interact with in real life will have eyes glaze over if I mention any of this to them. Then they will wait for me to take a breath, jump on that second to change the topic. Such is my life.

OK. Some of the things I'm taking away:

When I was driving down, I felt like an island in the gathering community. Afterall I use Web 2.0 tools to write, but I write about craft, art, and gardening. I write about very un-techie stuff. So I figured that I was separated by them all by my area of concentration.

While talking to these wonderful women, though, I realized that many of them (the podcasters and bloggers and some of the women working in tech) were really just like me. Their lives were intersections of tech and something else. Instead of feeling isolated, I came away realizing that I'm one of the traffic cops for my intersection. I tell the tech where to get their great knitting content; I tell the quilter how to tell her story in a more compelling fashion and how to connect to others with her specific passion.

Turn right! Go straight! You're in the right space!!

The best part of the conference was a 2 hour session held Monday afternoon on Podcasting. The women were incredibly helpful and so amazingly sharing. (and I'm looking up their names and blogs right now). They talked about equipment, they shared links, they shared the entire work flow for a project. Wow! There is so much I couldn't have grasped on my own.

Ya see, I've been contemplating doing some video blogging. It seems to me that the "how-to" articles I write could be more easily presented as videos rather than hoping to remember to stop and photograph steps along the process. It scares me bit to think about this... but being scared is a good thing. It's how you know you're still living.

So I'm still doing a whole lot of the verbally "vomiting" of impressions and reactions. If I see you in the next few days, just pat me on the head and tell me to go on my way unless you really want me to chew your ear off. Today, in truth, it's getting better. I think I've processed most of it out.

But aren't you glad I'm not heading to BlogWorld where we'd have to go over this all again??

I also blog at: Deb's Daily Distractions and BlogHer on Mondays and Saturdays.



No comments: