A Poet Looks Back At Converge South

Random Thoughts On Converge South

Author's Note: There's a lot more to this essay than meets the eye as it's written in 3D. Journalists, editors, bloggers, poets, authors, and other communicators need to take notes as there will be a test later.

It’s been a week since over 400 bloggers, journalists, students, teachers, elected officials, and others gathered in a sold out show at North Carolina A&T University here in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, and while I’ve tried to keep up with everything that has been written about that great weekend... Well, keeping up with over 400 writers is tough. From now on if you wish to have your Converge South thoughts added to my list you’ll have to e-mail me at idleblogs (AT) yahoo.com and send me your hyperlinks as I can’t do it all on my own.

For starters: The students at A&T are fantastic! I regularly make deliveries on lots of college campuses including A&T, and I’ve known for years how great A&T’s students are. Now everyone who attended Converge South knows what I know: Students on lots of other campuses need to be more like the students at A&T.

I met Dave Winer-- the dude who invented the first blogging software. I admit that Dave can be a bit of a jerk but I like him anyway. The dude is smart, really smart, but from what I can gather he’s frustrated, I suspect because he has yet to do what he thinks he wants to do and has yet to grasp what he needs to do whatever it is he hopes to do. Dave, as one who has learned it the hard way: there are no magic pills and even Superman had his kryptonite. Back away from the kryptonite, Dave, you’ll feel better in no time.

Jay Rosen isn’t a God, but I like him too. I can’t say that I really know Jay Rosen as we only spent parts of one day in the same place but Jay and I communicate from time to time and if you search his blog long enough you’ll find his link to BloggingPoet.com. I read Jay’s blog because my blogging mentor, Ed Cone pointed me there and I liked what I saw. My knowing Jay would have never been possible if not for our blogs, Think about it: what reason would an uneducated, ragged, old hippie biker/truck driver living in Greensboro, North Carolina, and passing himself off as a writer, ever have to get to know a professor who works in one of the most highly respected journalism schools in the entire world? A school that just happens to be 600 miles from where I live. Blogging hasn’t made me rich but blogging has given me voice I could have never had before. It was only through blogging that I came to meet the 80 plus residents of Blogsboro, (They're all really cool, you should meet 'em) the Piedmont Triad, and the rest of North Blogolina.

Hey Joe, I think you just got the answer to your question.

It was blogging that made AltMedia101.com possible and that’s putting money in my pocket. Hey Roch, my check came in the mail Saturday. Thanks.

Sue, we should be calling you, Wonder Woman ‘cause for the likes of me I can’t see how you managed to do what you did. Jay, Ed, Ben and others-- Ya’ll are fantastic too.

Remember the Washington-Baltimore Snipers? Kerry Sipes covered that story big time, and he and I met Friday. There were so many more I can’t possibly get to all of you in the same article.

Check out this quote: "What they have done for me is change my outlook on my local paper. They're no longer the big building downtown that spits out a newspaper every day. They're people. It's given me a lot of insight into what's going on in there. It's made The News & Record more real and tangible, like they never were before." Ted Vaden was quoting me for his newspaper, The Raleigh News And Observer. This tells me that big media is finally beginning to understand media’s relationship with and to bloggers. Thanks Ted.

Hey Larry, I think you just got the answer to your question.

Going to Converge South gave me a whole new audience. No, I’m not fooling myself into thinking that editors, publishers, and journalists from all over the country will be eagerly awaiting my every post, my every poem, my every thought as if my thoughts were a carrot on a stick, and everything else was simply cold dry biscuits, but how many unread press releases would it take for me to make the same impact as a bit of face to face conversation during a session or across the table under the tarp in David Hoggard’s front yard as we dined on ‘Q and downed cold brew? I suspect it would take a lot of unread press releases, don’t you?

Hey Dave, I think you just got the answer to your question.

But there’s more to this blogging/media revolution than meets the eye. Someone asked me where I thought the Blogosphere is and what I thought it would become?

Have you ever heard of “Atta Boys and Ah Shits?” Years ago I worked for a boss at a trucking company who used what he called the “Atta Boy, Ah Shit System” when it came to handling we drivers and the other employees under his charge. He explained it to me like this: When you do exactly what the job calls for it doesn’t mean a damned thing one way or the other-- nobody cares. When you do something extra-right like making an impossible delivery appointment on-time, getting us a new customer, or driving down some dangerously narrow and crooked back road that knocks fifty miles off the trip without an accident or a single phone call to the 1-800-CRY-BABY line then you get an “Atta Boy.” But when you’re late on one delivery or scratch one of my trucks you get an “Ah Shit.” One “Ah Shit” takes away one thousand “Atta Boys.”

Eventually we all learned to hold our boss to the same standards as he held us. It wasn’t pretty as everyone found themselves covered in “Ah Shit” and all the “Atta Boys” ended up so deep in the piles no one dared to dig them out. All we could hope to do was to drive away and leave the festering piles behind us.

That, my friends, has been the problem with the MSM/Blogger battles for the last few years. We judge each other by the “Atta Boy, Ah Shit System” which is designed to make everyone lose. The media loses a thousand “Atta Boys” with each “Ah Shit” but they only had 500 “Atta Boys” to begin with. And being that bloggers far outnumber journalists I’ve no doubt the journalists will never recover as long as we hold them to such unfair accounting. Should the MSM get it right more often? Sure they should but we should be giving them credit where credit is due. Otherwise, we all end up in a stinking pile.

What will the Blogosphere become?

Well for starters there’s a revolution going on in the Blogosphere that even some of the biggest names in the Blogosphere can’t begin to know, much less understand. Poets, photographers, novelists, artists, musicians, and others are all leading a revolution that will put the pundits, preachers, and politricksters in the minority forever more. As a matter of fact: Pundits, preachers, and politricksters-- the “3Ps” are already in the minority. The vast majority of blogs are being used for more artistic pursuits than punditry, politricks, and preaching to your choirs. You see, while those of you living in your own little 3P world scream back and forth at each other, the vast majority of the world-- the Blogosphere included-- goes on with the more important cultural aspects of life in an environment that is beyond the reach and understanding of those who fight for control of the 3Ps. That, my friends, is the thing that makes the Blogosphere the wondrous invention that it is. You see, blogging has put publishing into the hands of the great unwashed masses in a way that even the invention of the printing press was forever unable to do. And as computers continue to get cheaper and Internet access more widely available, the rule of the 3Ps will no doubt diminish until their influence and reach becomes as small as their real worth. That’s why innovations like AltMedia101 will work.

And while the revolution may or may not be televised, there’s a damn good chance there will be a podcast.

If you still don’t understand how the Blogosphere works then follow the link for a layman’s interpertation.

You see, Dave, some of us already know the answer to your question and have only you to thank for giving us the voice to answer it. Thanks, Dave, stay away from the kryptonite, okay? After all, no one wants to see Superman die.

Tag: Blogsboro
Tag: convergesouth

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