Look ma, I'm a blogger!

A couple of weeks ago I wound up at SXSW, the Interactive part of the festival (I'm not yet cool enough to stick around for the music portion). Lots of designers, developers and a TON of bloggers. I ran into Darren Rowse, the guy behind Problogger. Darren has a lot of hustle, and truly knows how to monetize a blog. He was kind enough to interview me, which you can read here.

Late last year I was interviewed at length for the book "Blogging Heroes," which is still in print. I highly recommend it if you've got friends or family who ask "what is this blogging thing anyway?"

And a quick update on my plans for a blogger meetup here in Knoxville: there has been some interest, so I'm pushing forward and hoping for a late summer or early fall date. I'm also hoping it won't be boring, which means no boring panels of interesting people. While SXSW had some good panels, it had a few stinkers too. The last thing I want is for our local meetup to be a simple meet-and-greet. Instead, I'd like everyone to come out of it with something we can build on. More to come...

Is any form of Knoxville solidarity possible?

I had an all-too-brief conversation recently with my virtual cubicle co-woker cafemama recently about time and work ethic. Sounds like a lot to get into with one quick convo, but it basically went something like this:
cafe: "most of the people i know run three or four blogs, have a consulting business, have three startups they're working on..."
me: "haha! all the more reason i get irritated when i see people who could be blogging doing stupid myspace surveys >.<"

So what is it that drains us of this get-up-and-go I find in places like Atlanta, Portland, San Francisco and elsewhere? I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush here, because honestly I've been quite impressed with some of the hardworking folks I've met around here. At ITT the former director, Dave Reynolds, used to mention the "Appalachia effect" and I guess he's talking about this stereotype of the ignorant hillbilly. But I think there's also a sort of circle-the-wagons mentality that has certainly been around since the very first settlers crossed the mountains. We tend to do things in tight circles, and our regional tech backwardness doesn't help-- we could be a lot more connected.

I guess what I'm getting at is that ideas like a blogger meetup, or any tech-based meetup seems to be very scattered or limited. There isn't the focus, the drive, the ambition and publicity that you might find elsewhere. And this is sad, considering our proximity to UT, Oak Ridge, and the brain trusts all over the region.

Certainly we're all pressed for time. At some point we all have to say no to things we'd love to say yes to, potential be damned. But it gets downright depressing when I start prodding people for a hint of camaraderie, only to be met with stony silence. You'd think folks can't wait to get the hell out of Knoxville.

If you're not hellbent on getting out of Knoxville, and if you've decided we can make this a better place, let's start small. Let's start talking about a real, live, actually promoted blogger meetup. Anyone who has been blogging for any length of time in a public way would surely agree that it can be an agent for change, or at the least, an agent for discussion and debate. That is what this whole democracy thing was founded upon-- the marketplace of ideas. As bloggers, I see it as our duty to promote this marketplace, and somehow make it more accessible, more relevant, and more informative than ever.

Surely the brains around here can agree on that? Let's get to it!