Anatomy of a bloggercon

“Community is the key. Whoever embraces and empowers community will have a far better chance of succeeding, no matter what form of media you work on.” – Dan Gillmor quoted in PressThink.


Anton Zuiker on Chapel Hill bloggercon
via Dave Winer

excerpts:
How we organized the Triangle Bloggers Conference

BEFORE

1. e-mail – started 12/20/04 with a message to Paul and Ed

2. blogs – the three of us posted to our blogs (Anton, Paul, Ed) and solicited reactions in our comments

3. wiki – editable page for anyone to sign up and offer ideas for the conference, created before Christmas, using Instiki

4. more e-mail – lots of personalized messages sent to friends, colleagues, fellow bloggers and newspaper editors

5. links – Dave Winer, Jay Rosen, Cory Doctorow, dozens of other bloggers and sites link to the wiki

6. listserv – bloggercon announcement sent to various university and community lists

7. big names – Paul invites Dan Gillmor to campus as part of the ibiblio speakers series; Dave Winer accepts an invitation to drive south; various local blogger luminaries add their names to the wiki list of participants

8. word of mouth – talked it up among friends, family and even strangers

9. news release – news release posted to the wiki, and submitted to UNC news service (see this for how that transpired)

10. media interviews – Paul and Anton interviewed by local radio and newspaper

11. other events – visits by Dan and Dave lead to journalism/blogging talks in Greensboro, a bloggers brunch in Chapel Hill and Dan’s speech at UNC-CH

12. Ta-da List – used the free service at tadalist.com to keep track of the tasks for planning the conference

13. sponsorships – though it breaks the BloggerCon rules, we learn later, Lulu.com sponsors the coffee and doughnuts; the School of Journalism and Mass Communication offers its support (Jen O’Bryan prints nametags and hard-to-miss neon signage)

14. help – the crew of ibiblio (Fred Stutzman and others) contributed technical support and video recording

DURING

15. welcomes – everyone’s welcomed to the event; John Ettorre flies in from Cleveland, Cathy Resmer flies in from Vermont, and two guys drive in from Atlanta; more than 125 people gather Feb 12 for the conference

16. liveblogging and follow-up posts – dozens of bloggers write about the conference before, during and after the event

AFTER

17. thank you notes – e-mail messages of thanks to all who attended; written notes to key participants to be mailed this week

ENDNOTES:
TRIANGLE BLOGGER CONFERENCE
PIEDMONT BLOGGER CONFERENCE

posted 21 February 05 by Anton Zuiker, edited by Dave Beckwith