Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Bloggers of Asheville! What do you want?

If you're a blogger, can you spare a minute to tell us something?

If we started up regular blogger meetups again, what would interest you?

A few of us here at BlogAsheville are talking about re-starting quarterly blogger meetups this spring. We'd like to keep the blogging community connected, share best practices, work together on community projects, and just enjoy the excellent company of Asheville's smart, vibrant and community-minded creative class of bloggers, Tweeters and Facebookers.

We've talked about social time, just hanging out somewhere where there's good beer and good food.

We've talked about a forum where we gather to talk about things that we care about as a blogging community, like disaster response using citizen media. We could invite Progress Energy, Fire & Rescue, Progress Energy, Charter, the DOT and everyone we can think of who was affected by the recent snowstorm. Talk together on what to do in the next crisis with powerful new tools that are reshaping the media landscape.

It'd be a hell of a way for bloggers to make real-world change in area where our much-lauded tools weren't used anywhere near their maximum power and effectiveness. We could help our city put a real plan into place for the next time that ordinary life in Asheville stops dead in its tracks.

We've talked about a speaker series, inviting local experts bloggers are geniunely interested in: star WNC powerbloggers who make money with their blogs, local SEO experts, local experts in blogging platforms like Wordpress, etc.

It all comes down to you, bloggers. It all comes down to us. Like our ideas? Got some of your own?

I figure we want to get together. I figure we want to make it worth our while.

What do we want to do?

Leave a comment and let us know.

- BlogAsheville Management

10 comments:

Jennifer Saylor said...

I think I'm leaning to the forum, if only because I like bloggers being useful together. But what other topics matter like that one?

Could we maybe do something different each time? A forum one time, a speaker series next time, a beery get-together, depending on what's appropriate when?

Start with the disaster-response forum and do something different in summer, when the weather is right for social time and a big cookout?

Blogapalooza in the fall, and see what winter brings when it comes?

Gordon Smith said...

Social time, please. Followed by something constructive.

Anonymous said...

I second Jen's ideas. All of the platforms are great ideas so perhaps switch it up a bit, this way we aren't so serious all the time and not goofing off too much.

Or perhaps do a monthly social thingy and then save the serious topics for quarter meetups.

Jennifer Saylor said...

Gordon, can you be more specific? What would you like us to do that's constructive?

martyweil said...

I agree with Gordon. Something social but with some type of worthwhile component. It could be all sorts of things related to blogging, citizen journalism, and the community.

It whole concept sounds exciting and most welcome.

Jennifer Saylor said...

Can I get some specifics out of you bloggers? Social time and then a workshop or forum, or vice versa?

Anonymous said...

Well specifically I would like to see us gather and help improve Asheville as far as being conducive to pedestrians, cyclists, and those who use public transit. I am very interested in making changes in Asheville that will be more progressive instead of stalling our growth. So personally any forum that would gather us to work on that I would jump all over in a heartbeat. And I am always partial to social gatherings once in awhile :)

Anne Fitten Glenn said...

I'd go with social, perhaps followed by an interactive speaker who can impart relevant, helpful information in 10 minutes or less.

mygothlaundry said...

I like the smaller, more laid back social things. I've just been organizing old photos, and, hey, in 2006 we went bowling and on pub crawls and it was all a lot of fun. I don't know, though, if that kind of informal thing scales well - there are so many more bloggers now and so much more going on. However, if somebody wants to organize a genial meetup in a pub, I'm there. I'm not particularly interested in the forum or lecture stuff; it's just not my thing.

Gordon Smith said...

Ideas we've talked about:

- AVL Bloggers Advertising Network

- Getting more AVL bloggers to utilize BlogAsheville as a place to promote their own work

- Tutorials on how to make your blog look and feel better