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While many BlogHers have shared their pre-conference jitters on what to wear,the parties,what to wear,leaving children behind with their dads,what to wear,meeting other BlogHers,what to wear, which sessions to attend, and mostly on what to wear, I too have some pre-conference jitters this year and it has nothing to do with my wardrobe.
Even though this will be my fifth BlogHer conference,for the first time in my entire blogging life I will be live blogging. Along with Mir, an experienced live blogger, we will be covering Thursday's BlogHer Business Conference. Having never done it before, I am somewhat nervous about the responsibility.
Given that my live blogging debut is just a mere four days away and counting, I thought I would do some research on live blogging trends and recommendations for creating terrific live blog posts. I wanted to find out what other bloggers who have done live blogging learned about the process, wish they knew before they began, and any advice they had to offer neophytes.
Surprisingly, there are slim pickings. Even though it seems that people are live blogging everything from episodes of The Office to Michael Jackson's funeral and Judge Sonia Sotomayer's confirmation hearings, there doesn't seem to be a Live Blogging For Dummies.
Is it, as Paul Simon asks, "MaybeI think Too Much?" Will excellent live blogging just happen? Is it as simple as, if you can take notes, you can live blog? Can people tell the difference between live blogging styles? Is there an Art to Live Blogging?
As I Googled terms that I thought might lead me to some great posts about Live Blogging - I searched : Professional Live Blogging, Live Blogging Tips, Live Blogging Trends, what you need to know about live blogging and then finally the art of live blogging, I finally found something worthwhile.
It was a post on BlogHer, written by Beth Kanter in 2006. Why am I not surprised? Through that post I did find someone who had written something called, Live Blogging For Dummies. And I also found some very comforting and practical advice from Beth.
First of all, live blogging takes a certain chutzpah. Someone said that live bloggers should carry around a hip flask in their tool box! So, you can't be afraid of making mistakes ... publically .... The nice thing about live blogging is that it is written in electricity, not stone - so you can always fix things later.
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Before the conference, I decide which sessions I'm going to live blog. I create a post draft and cut and paste the description into as well as gather up any useful background links. I put a live blogging disclaimer at the top of the post that says "I'm live blogging, excuse lapses of grammar, spelling errors, and typos. I will clean this up later." I also add in the conference technorati tag at the bottem as well as any trackback urls.
In addition to just great practical advice, the conversation in the comment section was also very useful. BlogHer Contributing Editor Pam Mandel questioned the value of live blogging.
I think it's a rare blogger who can make live blogging compelling for people who aren't present. I find a well written synopsis is more valuable than stream of consciousness note-taking.
So far, the "live" posts that are useful to me as someone who's NOT there are those that include links to external sources that a speaker may have referred to in the talk.
What strikes me is that it's been three years since these BlogHers had that conversation. Very little conversation on the topic seems to have occurred since then and yet the amount of live blogging has increased expodentially.
Do people want their live bloggers to act like play-by-play sports reporters providing live action for those who can't be there? Or as Pam Mandel asks, is it more useful to have well-written synopsis?
I do find it surprising that there isn't a richer conversation and an analysis of this blogging technique.As it evolved since Beth's comprehensive post in 2006? Or,has the invasion of Twitter as a live coverage tool minimized people's interest in reading live blogs?
I've got four more days to think about my approach to live blogging the Business Conference. I would love to hear from you -- if you are not attending BlogHer Business what approach are you hoping Mir and I will take in our live blogging efforts?
Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness and about
