Being Amber Rhea

8:50 a.m. - We’re here, and we’re podcasting this.

The new social sciences building at Kennesaw State is a nice, brand-new facility, and what a great venue for this unconference! Right now Sherry is talking and giving the ground rules, and doing an awesome job as usual. I’m going to attempt to do some live-blogging here, as much as I can. Stay tuned!

8:57 a.m. - Leonard Witt just said, “Today, Linux is as robust as Microsoft; maybe moreso.” Maybe? Ha!

Oh, also, earlier Josh took a photo of Rusty and me… here it is:

9:05 a.m. - Oh god! Infinite loop!

9:14 a.m. - Note to Tim: stop using IE on the computer that’s hooked to the projector!

9:16 a.m. - First quote of the day, from Josh: “You can’t get away with shit anymore.”

9:20 a.m. - Oh god, some very earnest dude is talking about how horrible it was 30-40 years ago when WOMEN WEREN’T ALLOWED TO VOTE in various places around the world. I’m sorry, this might not come across as very funny but it has me cracking the fuck up. When you hear the audio, maybe you’ll do the same. Btw - he is NEVER going to support IE!!

(I mean, I completely agree with his view on IE, but shit… something about this guy is giving me the giggles.)

9:26 a.m. - I just totally blew my cool and was the idiot gawking at the video camera that showed up over my shoulder. They’ll cut that. (Whoever “they” are.)

Now Jeff is talking about capitalism. Also, it’s kind of giving me a boner that the conversation has turned to standards and the importance of them (esp. wrt Mozilla, etc.). It’s good to have more geekiness here - that was kind of missing at BlogSavannah.

Stephen Eley hates the term “Web 2.0″ and admits to being a cynic. Heh. “There’s no specific message, but they just think it’s really cool,” he says. Also, he says it’s a problem if the conversation becomes too masturbatory. LOL.

9:32 a.m. - Sometimes being a snob is okay and sometimes it’s not. I need to think about this more and formulate my thoughts; I’ll write more about it all later. Oh god now a business guy is talking about how he doesn’t care about Firefox and blahblahblee. Here comes the Jerry Springer moment. This guy pisses me off. He’s very impressed with himself, apparently. I’m not using his name but he knows who he is!!

But, I mean, his point about focusing on content not tools is a good one… well, except, I don’t know if that was really his point. Josh is making the point much better, and is smacking down his shitty kind of snobbery. The guy was all, “Oh, this is crap, blahblah…” Well, as Josh said, it’s not crap to everybody. WORD.

9:38 a.m. - I can hardly keep up with my live-blogging! This is a good conversation - very heated, lots of passion and opinions, it’s really making me think a lot. Just listen to the podcast when we put it up next week.

Now Shelby’s talking about the “digital divide.” Give ‘em hell!

9:43 a.m. - Waffle House keeps coming up.

A guy was just saying, some conversations have value and others don’t. Yeah, but, who defines “value?”

9:50 a.m. - New quote of the day from James Harris: “Think beyond the screen.” It’s not hyperbole, I don’t think, to suggest that Web 2.0 (yes I said it) can be utilized to help change the world. Btw this is what I want to talk about at the session Rusty and I will be leading at PodCamp Atlanta, about building community through podcasting.

10:00 a.m. - Okay Coty, let’s wrap it up dude. (I’m not trying to be mean here. I’m just saying.)

10:20 a.m. - Chris Klaus from Kaneva is about to start his presentation. I’m uploading some more photos to Flickr.

10:27 a.m. - This presentation is more like a regular conference. He’s showing Powerpoint slides and talking at us. I don’t remember who said it (maybe Dave Winer?) but it really is true… once you’ve been to an unconference, it’s damn near impossible to go back [to a regular conference].

10:34 a.m. - Chris Klaus just referred to the iMac as “the iMac device.” Ha! Btw, re: the iMac… hi, welcome to 4 years ago. Anyway, I guess this is a good time for me to charge the battery in my laptop.

10:45 a.m. - “Anybody here have 3D modeling skills?”

11:01 a.m. - Great point by (imagine that!) an audience member - the harder companies try to control their brand in the new media space, the less success they will have. Things are changing and companies have to change accordingly. This is the smartest thing that’s been said for the whole session. This guy was the first audience member allowed to actually say something. WTF will Chris say. He’s totally not getting it.

Also Chris seems to think Microsoft hired Scoble specifically to blog for them. LOL.

11:20 a.m. - Okay it’s time for this session to end; it’s already gone over five minutes. I don’t give a crap about avatars. I can’t wait for the break-out sessions.

1:06 p.m. - Lunch is over and now I’m in the “Women and Social Media: Finding Your Niche” session. I’m using one of our portable digital recorders to record this, but people aren’t speaking up very well (I’m about to remind them to do so) - so I can’t say how this podcast will turn out. Some guy(!) is saying, women are more socially oriented. WTF.

1:15 p.m. - Already this session has me feeling very annoyed and I’m hoping I won’t go off on some rant and dominate the podcast. :P We shall see.

1:26 p.m. - You know what? I really think there needs to be an uncon specifically focused on issues with feminism and blogging. And not just feminism, but the intersectionality of all these different kinds of issues and how blogging, podcasting, etc. lets us talk about those things. And I want there to be an emphasis on sexuality - e.g., how all this new media stuff is giving women new avenues for exploring their sexuality and knocking down walls based on stereotypes and shit (a lot like what Dacia’s forthcoming book is about). I really need to get my thoughts together about this and have it coalesce into something more coherent… maybe after PodCamp I’ll organize this thing! Just you wait!

1:30 p.m. - Why are we talking about search engine optimization? This session is supposed to be about “finding your niche” and we’re 30 minutes in and so far we haven’t talked about that at all.

1:39 p.m. - Oh god here comes the conversation again about professional vs. personal. I can’t take it. Oh, and a woman and a man started talking at the same time, but the woman said, “Oh, you go ahead.” Oh and now this guy (same guy) was just like, “Oh, well, people get fired for that” when I was talking about how things are getting less compartmentalized and there’s a push for transparency. I said it’s a mental roadblock a lot of people hit up against, and they get over it at different times - and some never do. God I can’t handle this conversation again - I’m going go off on somebody. I just… I feel so passionately about this, and I want people to hear what I’m saying. (And what lots of other people are saying! Sherry really gets it, for instance.) Can I keep my mouth shut in here now that I feel my heart racing, or is it important that I DON’T keep my mouth shut? Arrrrghh…

1:44 p.m. - So, everybody has their own opinion of what makes a good blog and what they want to read in a blog. Yeah, sure, that’s great; opinions are like assholes. But ultimately? What it comes down to is, every individual gets to define what a blog is for themselves. If you want to be totally transparent, that’s your choice to make; if you want to be solely professional in your writing, that’s your choice too. And that’s the great thing about blogs! Each person can decide for themselves! The guy next door doesn’t like it? Fuck him! He can start his own blog and write it the way he likes; and he can read other blogs that are written in a way he likes. I’m not writing my blog for him, I’m writing for ME.

Yes this is the same discussion that always happens at these unconferences, but I think it’s still important to have. And, like Josh was saying earlier, a lot (maybe most) of these people are hearing it for the first time.

And goddammit, this guy sitting here next to me is totally hung up and he’s dominating the whole damn session. One of the session leaders needs to put the kibosh on this crap.

1:48 p.m. - Jeneane Sessum just said something about writing about your sex life - the assumption seeming to be, oh you would NEVER do THAT. Oh god. (Jeneane if you read this later… I’m interested to know, is this perception correct?)

1:52 p.m. - Ha! I think the guy sitting next to me may have finally shut up. Oh wait, no, there he goes again.

I like what Lee and Adam are saying about finding out who their audience is rather than making assumptions.

1:58 p.m. - The guy next to me just started a sentence with, “The thing she doesn’t understand is…” Argh!! Well, this one is almost over.

Oh good, whew! Now J. Brotherlove is speaking sense.

Okay! Off to Josh’s “Off the Record” session.

2:56 p.m. - There were only five of us in Josh’s session, so I didn’t do any live-blogging. It was me, Josh, Coty, Sherry, and David Cohen. We had a great conversation about the way the culture is changing with the (slow) move toward transparency and authenticity. No, I didn’t record it, so no podcast will be forthcoming; Stephen had my digital recorder with him to record the session called “The Power of Online Social Communities.”

3:28 p.m. - It’s over! What a day. A lot of people are heading over to Mellow Mushroom for pizzas and beers, but Rusty and I are going to head home. I can’t speak for him, but I’m probably going to take a nap. Right now Rusty is doing an interview with Stephen Eley which will be up as an episode of Mostly ITP at some point. After this? Packing up our gear and heading back down to Decatur!

It’s been a great day!

Technorati: SoCon07