As I am preparing for the first session of the conference today, I have been doing a lot of thinking about best practices for liveblogging, many of which I am learning while engaging in this process. I will combine whatever I learn into a single list at the end of this research.

1. Have an extension cord. I always used to carry one in my computer bag, a long one with multiple plugs at the end. I removed this since it was too heavy, so will have to take time during our break to go buy a new, lighter one.
2. Make sure there is full, long-charged battery. As I learned from our Welcome session that I am preparing for, there may be locations (such as this auditorium) that do not have many outlets. Thus, do not count on having a power source.
3. WiFi is not ubiquitous. While we like to hope and even think that wireless access is open and available in every conference, this is still not a reality.
4. Have a camera with a cord to connect to the computer. While a camera is very useful, traveling to the venue with its cord to be able to synch the images, upload to the website or a service such as Flickr, will save lots of time later in the day adding these and then reposting the entries.
5. Consider what to say while engaging in liveblogging if asked. I learned last night, when I first mentioned this project to a few colleagues at the reception, some of them looked quizically. One even mentioned that academics would not be interested in this work since they like to have their writing refined and polished before it is made public. While refining and polishing is something that is useful for the tenure review process, I responded that this is a research project in itself, and I am more concerned that I capture the data (information from the sessions) as it happens, since the polishing and refinement (which in the case of blogging means writing and rewriting for permanent posting) is something that may not be possible with this endeavor, from a practical perspective as well as from a data-gathering perspective in this case. As a side-point, this same person asked a practical question about how will somebody find this research. While the short answer is that it is amazing how people find blog entries, my intention is to present my findings at a conference next year and then publish from this experience, which will in turn make this more public.
6. Use an offline blog editor. If at all possible, determine which sessions will be attended and then create basic postings for each that list the sessions / speakers for each one. This will allow for each entried to have a simple template, or home, for when things begin. Remember to adjust the times to the actual sessions.
7. Adjust the laptop computer time if this is in another time zone. This will allow for accurate time stamping for the posts.
8. Consider whether to use a camera to add to the visual elements, or not

Ahh, the opening is beginning.