Monday, January 28, 2008

This Saturday!



Community Media come together to storm the brains and blend the circles this Saturday, Feb. 2nd at west Asheville's Rocket Club. BlogAsheville, MAIN, and WPVM are gathering to see what strange alchemy might result.

From 7-8 pm, BlogAsheville bloggers will meet with folks from MAIN and WPVM to imagine how community internet providers, community radio, and community bloggers can innovate and partner. Wally Bowen, archguru of MAIN already has oodles of interesting ideas, and he'll put some of those out for us to consider. Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company is providing some pizzas for this hour, so come if you're hungry!

From 8pm until the last conversation is conversed we'll be meeting new folks, catching up with BlogAsheville compatriots, and hanging hardcore at the Rocket Club. If things get too crowded or too noisy there, we may bail across the street to The Admiral.

It's been too long since BlogAsheville got together, and it seems crazy that MAIN, WPVM, and BlogAsheville haven't gotten together before now.

So come on out to a landmark event in Asheville's growing community media juggernaut. Intelligent, witty, well-read, media savvy, and beautiful - our community media grows, develops, and celebrates.

2 comments:

sophie said...

I am interested in learning what the plan is, but I think it's important for BlogAsheville to remain a collective of independent voices (assuming that is the intent? I am a newcomer) and not a representation of MAIN/WPVM as part of its identity. I hope that this community of independent voices will remain so and not a venue for a particular political agenda, such as the one MAIN/WPVM have adopted as part of its identity. The "independent media" (including the inclusive nature of BlogAsheville) is quite a different thing than the "progessive voice" that MAIN/WPVM adopted several years ago. However much we may agree with issues, adopting and/or representing them widescale could alienate new and other voices. Some bloggers (such as myself) don't necessarily want a political affiliation with their blog and there's no denying that "progressive" politics are partisan politics. The party should be fun, in any case!

Gordon Smith said...

Sophie,

Yes. BlogAsheville is an entirely inclusive community of bloggers of every political or apolitical stripe. BlogAsheville is a leaderless affiliation of independent bloggers. I think if some bloggers wanted to independently involve themselves in cross-promotion, marketing, "citizen journalism", or some other creative endeavor with MAIN, WPVM they would do it outside the auspices of BlogAsheville proper.

I think it might be appropriate for BlogAsheville (with consent of all its peeps) to get involved in a campaign for increased internet access. To me it would be like book readers advocating for more libraries.

I'm just excited to hear what ideas come up and excited to have all these community media folk in the same room at the same time. We're just a bunch of folks who like doing what we're going so much that most of us do it for free.

See you Saturday!