Here's a conference with a difference. The second BloggerCon (April 17, 2004 at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA) assumes that everything's for attribution and everyone's a journalist. Want an example of what can go wrong or right (depending on your perspective) when this happens? Then read on! This year's BloggerCon offers sessions on blogging in journalism, education, science and tutorials for people who are new to blogging. To quote:
“BloggerCon is an unusual conference. We don't have speakers, slide shows or panels. Repeat that please. No panels, no PowerPoints, no speakers. We do have discussions and sessions, and each session has a discussion leader … BloggerCon is an unusual conference in that almost everyone participating writes publicly. So we assume that everyone present is a journalist. Every badge is a press badge … The job of the moderator is to assemble a story by calling on the people at his or her disposal. They're like reporters putting together a story, but you get to hear, first hand what the experts are saying, in their own voices.”
One of the sessions is Blogging in Academia which focuses on the use of blogs to engage in institutional criticism and bypass traditional methods of hierarchy and compartmentalization.
As with last year, BloggerCon is organized by Dave Winer the pioneer designer of weblog tools, author of the RSS 2.0 specification, president of UserLand Software, and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
It was from Dave's site that I got wind of a powerful example of 'alternative' communication channels at work. So those doubting the potential influence of weblogs in comparison to more traditional methods of publication may find the case study Big Media Meets the 'Bloggers' …, published by Harvard's Shorenstein Center, of interest.
