Semi Truths A highly irregular weblog dedicated to Truth, Justice, and American Cheese…!

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After the two speakers, the first actual blogging workshop was entitled Enhancing and Promoting Your Blog, led by Jon Henke and Waldo Jaquith. Waldo is the rock star of local bloggers, not just because he’s been at it since he was, like, twelve … but because he is smart and approachable. His “aw shucks, I’m just one of you” demeanor is completely genuine, but his output and influence are legendary in these here parts.

Waldo demurred to his co-presenter, Jon Henke, one of the minds behind QandO. Just to show how unhip I am, I had never heard of QandO before. While they were talking, I looked it up and discovered that Jon had written this line about Congressman William Jefferson: “Jefferson is not being judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his refrigerator,” so I liked him immediately.

We stayed on the topic for roughly five minutes before veering off into sideline discussions, but that was just fine. This was the first opportunity we all had to speak up in a public forum, so that was to be expected. The gist of the presentation was this: content is king, and people will read your blog if you have interesting things to say. Also, the best way to get people to come check out your site is to go to their sites and add relevant comments. (Waldo added that he has only deleted comments twice, and one of those times was an obvious troll by someone just to get their URL listed on his site).

Jon runs QandO on software that he helped develop called .BLOG. Waldo uses WordPress (in fact, Waldo turned me on to WordPress for this site) and mentioned several plug-ins that he uses to keep out spam and other unwanted comments, including Bad Behavior and Spam Karma 2. For monitoring site traffic, Waldo recommends Mint (and both Jon and Waldo recommend that you stop using SiteMeter!) *

At the end of this session, I rushed to buddy up with Vivian Paige and Josh Chernila for dinner, but lost them in the crowd.

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After the opening remarks by Bob McDonnell, we were treated to an introduction by Bob Holsworth, Director of the Center for Public Policy at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Dr. Bob” fired the opening salvo in what was the topic number one in the background chatter: are bloggers responsible for Jim Webb’s nomination as Democratic candidate for Senate? (Waldo hosts a thoughtful discussion here).

Holsworth concluded that, although the bloggers could not take full credit for Webb’s victory, they were part of the discussion that leant forward momentum to the Webb campaign. He credited the blogs with helping Democrats focus on a strategic candidate, one who looks good as a virtual candidate against George Allen, but wondered whether a national campaign can translate Webb into a practical candidate. Allen, said Holsworth, will run a local campaign, portraying Webb as a hand-picked candidate who happens to live in Virginia.

Holsworth then spoke more of Allen’s presidential aspirations, how former Governor Mark Warner is framing himself as another presidential candidate, and the strategic decisions that led to Governor Tim Kaine’s victory last fall. By the end of his talk, I think everyone there was excited about being a Virginia Political Blogger during this momentous time.

Holsworth is a teacher and a lecturer, and it shows. I felt like I was in a very interesting Political Science 101 class. He says “uhh…” way too many times, but is an inspired speaker and brings up interesting questions regarding the future of Virginia politics in general, how campaigns work and what makes a candidate choose their priorities. I really wish I could sit in on this class again!

Continuing my review of the 2006 VA Bloggers Summit…

After a few brief introductions, the Summit got under way with opening remarks from VA Attorney General Bob McDonnell. This was a rare opportunity for many of us to see this important man in person and he came across as very smooth, very Republican. He has been the AG for only five months after a close and contested race with Creigh Deeds.

To his credit, McDonnell actually read some blogs before showing up and quoted from them (although horribly mangling Waldo‘s last name in the process). He had some complimentary words of caution for us, referring to blogs as “new media”, which showed he had done his homework, and openly recognizing that they play an important part in political discussions. He also brought up some legal considerations, but didn’t offer much meat. He was probably wise not to take questions afterward, but I wish he had. Here was a rare opportunity for the Commonwealth’s Attorney General to address issues of defamation and copyright with a captive and interested audience, but he seemed more interested in talking than in listening.

In the final analysis, I don’t think that McDonnell said much of substance and he was too much in campaign mode for my taste. I heard later from one of his aides that the AG actually wrote his own talk, which raises him in my estimation, especially after we heard from Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling the next day (more on him in a later post).

This weekend, I attended the 2nd annual VA Bloggers Conference hosted by the Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership. For two days, I had the opportunity to meet fellow bloggers and attend thoughtful sessions on issues regarding blogging: our relatonship with the MSM, blogging ethics, anonymous blogging and pseudonyms, and much more. I hope to provide some commentary on all of these subjects.

Most interesting were the conversations that I had with fellow VA political bloggers and the new bonds of kinship that I formed. My writings are left-leaning, but mainly nihilistic (if we ever see actual liberal politicians in power, I’ll do my best to poke fun at them, too), but I particularly enjoyed meeting bloggers from “the other side”, like Rick Sincere, a self-described “gay, libertarian, Catholic, Republican author and theatre critic” (really, there’s enough in there for anyone to like) and Tucker Watkins, former 5th District chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia and an aide to Senator George Allen. I also made fine new friends like Josh Chernila, Jim Duncan, Bob Griendling, Jennifer McKeever, Vivian Paige, and Brian Patton (and others, I am sorry to say, whose names or websites I have forgotten).

Over the next few days, I will be posting my thoughts and commentaries on the many different conversations, both formal and otherwise, that took place over a scant 24 hours from registration on Friday afternoon until the conference ended on Saturday. This will culminate, by the end of this week, in a Blog Carnival round-up of the best analyses of the Conference offered by my fellow participants. If you would like your own site included in the round-up, please feel free to post a comment here or drop me a line at “VABlog06 AT Semitrue.com“. Thanks.