Day two of the Seminars on Academic Community conference in lovely Snowmass…. I am reflecting that conferencing blogging is tiring work for me…
Yesterday, in the morning keynote session, I was sharing note writing with Cyprien Lomas in a shared space of SubEthaEdit. We both talked later about how that experience played out- we were both scrambling to write down notes, sometimes stepping on each other, sometimes trading off, or one would start from the bottom of a presentation slide… he noted that when it works, people take roles, and I am thinking we do not have enough writers to do more than just notetake race. I recall that it was really effective at the NMC 2004 conference in Vancouver but there were like 8 or more people working it at the same time.
I’m also giving reconsiderations to this process of note-taking during sessions. On one hand, I feel obsessed with getting details and links for my own selfish use later on. And I think it helps my information processing to be writing and thinking together.
On the other hand, prolific presenters like Stephen Downes share so much of their work online, it represents itself well without my own 2-bit sloppy typing.
And then I made a joking remark (“Did you lose your computer?”) at Phil Long as he was writing an email at the computer stations, and he laughed but gave a thoughtful remark about his conscious decision to not have the distraction of the computer and doing other things at conferences. It sounds like a tug of war, but I respect the notion. I prefer more to write reflections later on session, but invariably I run out of time, interest, or energy.
So is there value in conference blogging or not? How much is needed to “capture” the essence?
And why am I writing and not in a session? (Too bad, Bryan Alexander did not make it here for his session, was looking forward to hearing and meeting him).
