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.

After I left the AERC 2007 Wine and Cheese Reception this evening, I went back to the hotel. I know there was a dinner (that I do not believe I was able to get a ticket to, since I requested one late) and Andre invited me to a post-LGBTQ dinner at one of the speaker's homes, but I was beat after the trip and needed to unpack and prepare for tomorrow, the first full-day of the conference.

Robin and I went looking for a restaurant close to the hotel, and I took these pictures of historic downtown Halifax.

What a pretty city. I wish I could see more of it, but will be in the conference for the next few days. I will make a point of going to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Martime Museum of the Atlantic.

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, Halifax

I arrived in Halifax today, but was unable to make it to any of the presentations of the GLBTQ Preconference, which I wanted to attend but was unable to due to my plane and travel schedule. I was able to see Julie Gedro of Empire State College, who is a colleague of mine for several years now through AHRD and AERC and whose passion and energy in her teaching and research inspire me when I face my own academic hurdles. With her I met Tonette Rocco who is at Florida International University and is the Editor of New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. was reintroduced to David Brightman, the editor at Jossey-Bass who I met last year and who supports the work and efforts of many of the scholars who attend this conference and help to make it happen. I then bumped into Andre Grace, the coordinator of the preconference / president of CASAE / supporter and encourager of my own preconference presentation last year, who invited me to one of the professor’s who spoke today who was having a gathering at his home here in Halifax. 

What a wonderful way to start the conference itself. I did not have any wine or cheese or food or drink; but to be around some of these people again lifts my spirits and makes me both look forward to tomorrow as well as be thankful I was able to make it here again this year. I wonder who else I will see tomorrow, both from the past as well as new into the future. Ahhh, the ideas and thoughts that await. Interesting way to begin a research project!

I have started my trip to Halifax for the AERC 2007 conference. While I am presenting a paper there (see my post yesterday), this time my conference experience will be different from previous ones. The major difference is that I plan to live blog this conference, or at least my experiences at this conference, as part of a research project I am working on.

There are a few issues I need to mention and begin discussing at the outset. Firstly, live blogging is a relatively new concept. There is little research around it thus far (I hope to begin changing that). There are even different names for this: live blogging, live-blogging, and liveblogging–I have used all three of them in different situations, and plan to use the term as a single word as per the model of the great community and educationally-oriented blogger, Beth Kanter (though even she uses it with one and two words in different places). There is not a common understanding of what its purpose is–Seth Godin, a favorite author and speaker of mine, mused recently about his experiences presenting while many audience members were lost in their own blogging about their immediate personal experiences during a presentation. Christian Long has some interesting things to say about it. To expedite this, it appears a number of serious bloggers use offline blog editors (programs) so that things can be written even without a direct connection to the blog itself and then posted later. This also allows for a smoother writing–I am using ecto for this, and have already found a few features I like more (it automatically creates Technorati tags) as well as less (it does not automatically detect and submit trackbacks) than using the web interface of Movable Type itself. 

With all these unresolved issues to face before I even arrive in Halifax itself (I am writing this while waiting at Newark Airport), it seems to me that this medium is still in its early stages. Hmmm, early stages for both practitioners as well as researchers. Seems like a ripe place to begin my practitioner research then, especially at this friendly and academic adult education conference.

Technorati Tags: Beth Kanter, live blogging, liveblogging, live-blogging, Seth Godin

Getting packed and ready to leave to travel to Halifax, Nova Scotia to present a paper I wrote with a colleague, Robin Yap, at AERC2007. The paper, Critical HRD—Need for Emergence of Critters in Adult Education, is available online, as are all the peer-reviewed papers that will be presented there. Finishing our presentation, and considering making a small sign for my laptop alerting people to the fact that I will be live blogging the conference.

This is not needed, but it may raise awareness of this research project I am undertaking and may in fact help bridge the gap between research and practice.

Technorati Tags: Adult Education Research Conference, AERC, AERC2007

SixApart announced today that the beta version of Movable Type 4 is now available for download and testing. It seems there will be major changes in MT4. Let's see–OpenID, Open Source, static pages, a new WYSIWYG interface, wow. Has MT caught up with all the other development out there finally? Looks like I may be glad I stayed with the program rather than the WordPress / Drupal switch. 

I just hope, with all these promised changes, that it can be installed without hiring an army of developers. That is one of the largest hidden expenses of MT to date. 

I am planning to live blog the Adult Education Research Conference I am planning to attend later this week, and am planning a research project around live blogging. I just downloaded and installed ecto, a desktop blogging program. This is my first post using ecto.

Craig Newmark, the Craig in Craigslist, spoke to and with us last night at the Social Media Club NY meeting. It was nice to hear him again so soon after hearing him speak on a panel discussion two weeks ago at Personal Democracy Forum. As others have more fully blogged about this
event, including Mark Rose, Howard Greenstein, Allen Stern, and Donna Bogatin, I want to muse on some of the random thoughts and ideas Craig raised as I thought some
of them were useful.

“Death is my exit strategy.”

• I like this quote of Craig. While he used it in the context of when he will leave his work at Craigslist, I suppose in a more postmodern way, this is true for all of us. I wonder how strategic many of us are about this, both for whatever legacy we are interested in leaving as well as how we want to leave our memories once we are gone (like we really have any control over that).

“We need people to speak truth to power.”

• I have never heard this Quaker phrase before, but it seems consistent with Craig’s political views that he shared at the meeting. Here, I thought that was original at the time. Catchy phrase, and when trying to learn a little more about it, I found this on the Quaker site itself:
• To those who hold high places in our national life and bear the terrible responsibility of making decisions for war or peace.
• To the American people who are the final reservoir of power in this country and whose values and expectations set the limits for those who exercise authority.
• To the idea of Power itself, and its impact on Twentieth Century life.
• I keep thinking about Foucault and Weber and Marx (who has some great stuff that is often missed due to the American experience with Communism and the Cold War). Power exists in all human interaction, and I wonder why, given the great amount of American frustration with the course of the war in Iraq, the status quo continues. Perhaps people find it better to complain and shake our heads rather than get up and do anything to change the course of the conflict. I suppose if those in power do not feel pressure
  to change (i.e., power), then why do anything differently? Here, after the Democrats took over in Congress, nothing seems to have changed with the war. Another broken promise, or is that too simple a way of looking at this?
• I wonder, too, about this, in the manner Craig spoke. He was very calm, and while I find him wonderful to listen to, there was little moderation in his tone and speaking manner. His words seemed passionate, but there was little animation as he spoke about this. Interesting disconnect.

Craig’s theme of journalists and the need to have them to tell what is really happening in the world.

• I was glad he did not use the term “tell the truth” about situations in the world. I am becoming inclined to see the concept of “the truth” as being a subjective assessment of the world, as opposed to an objective descritpion of world events. I know, I am not sure how objective anything can be (i.e., can we ever speak about anything outside of our prior experiences?), but journalists have the same pressures (their beliefs, power relationships, personal and organizational political hurdles) we all do, so I find
  it a challenge that they should be held to an other standards than other people. I think about the New York Times and their All the News That’s Fit to Print – who decides what is news and what aspect (i.e., which side or perspective of it) should be presented (i.e., discussed). So, if the “news” does not cover a story, does that mean it is not news?
• Perhaps I need to study some journalism. I wonder if Jay Rosen at Assignment Zero is onto something here?

I like the meetings of Social Media Club. Having been a member for a few months now and having attended a few meetings and listened to some really talented people talk about some really interesting things, I feel stimulated. Isn’t that what social media is all about?

Technorati Tags: Craig Newmark, Social Media Club, smc