Atlanta Media Bloggers

Breakfast is served

James Harris from ListenShare has stepped up to provide breakfast for the conference.

update already on the Atlanta Media un-Conf

Wow! I give you people an action plan and you start acting.

We have a date, Saturday, February 10, 2007
Time 9:00am to 3:00pm

We have had SEVERAL offers and suggestions for venue, but I am going with
Kennesaw State University. I like the idea of the college setting.

We have the gang from Greensboro ready and willing to help - thank you so much!

I have some ideas for speakers that I will reach out to - let me know if there is any particluar interest.

Need food sponsored, I think a few people are on top of that already.

and here we go...

Atlanta Social Media Un-Conference Action Plan

Hi Everyone,

Kevin Howarth, Andrew Lunde, James Harris, Amber Rhea, Rusty Tanton and I had a great visit to Greensboro, NC for ConvergeSouth 2006. ConvergeSouth attracted about 200 people, all bloggers, mostly from the area but also from as far as Baltimore. They had really great discussion leaders such as Elizabeth Edwards and Robert Scoble. Breakfast was provided by Edelman, Lunch was provided by PayPerPost and the A&T University provided the facilities. The event was free for everyone. After the event, there was a sign up for hosted dinners, which was paid for by each person.

I got to speak with one of the organizers who happens to be from Atlanta (grew up down the street from Martin Luther King Jr) and she is more than willing to provide any guidance for our Atlanta Un-Conference.

James Harris and I discussed some of  things that need to happen to get more momentum going to make this work. We made a few decisions that needed to be made.

The conference will be held on Saturday, February 10, 2007 from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
At this time we are setting the attendance to be 100 people

We need a venue - let me know who you know that we can contact that will be willing to provide a space.

We need sponsors to provide breakfast and lunch - who do you know?

We need to nail down who to invite as discussion leaders. I would like to see topics about online community building, RSS, podcasting, streaming video, social networking spaces, Enterprise 2.0 and virtual worlds (any other ideas?)

We will need to raise a little money to provide accommodations for any speakers.

We need PR (that sounds like a committee)

Please email me with your ideas and suggestions at sherryheyl[@]gmail.com

Arianna Huffington is keynote speaker at the Decatur Book Festival tonight!

Link: The AJC Decatur Book Festival | Event Schedule.

Sorry for the last minute notice. I'm not too organized these days.

It's at Agnes Scott College, Presser Hall, 8-9 pm.

I've always wanted an excuse to poke around the Agnes Scott campus. It's so beautiful.

Anybody feel like going? I plan to be there. While she isn't directly scheduled to talk about Huffington Post (slated to talk about her book on work/life balance), I expect she'll get some questions about the Post during the Q&A session, if there is one.

I'm a fan of what she's done with the Post, both in its navigation and architecture, and its sense of being a "stable" of a wide range of well-known people. She's given them a forum to blog and unleashed a powerful and now influential collective voice on the blogosphere and beyond.

In particular, I hope to ask her for more information about how she set up her deal with Yahoo! News, both to repurpose content from her site, but also getting primo structural representation in the opinion section of the Yahoo! News page. Did she make the deal the way it has usually been done with newspaper syndicated columnists? Or was there more of a trade or exchange aspect involved? Did she approach Yahoo! News, or did Yahoo! News approach her? I'm just really curious about the business model of the arrangement. Inquiring minds want to know!

Keynote Address

The AJC DBF is proud to announce political columnist Arianna Huffington as its keynote speaker! Join Ms. Huffington as she opens the festival Friday night at Presser Hall at Agnes Scott College with a discussion of her new  book, On Becoming Fearless… In Love, Work, and Life.  

View Arianna  Huffington’s bio.

There's a ton of other events at the conference, plus a festival atmosphere with a book market on the Decatur Square, a barbecue and fireworks among the many things scheduled.

Activities In-Depth:

• Antiquarian Book Fair
• Barbeque and Fireworks
• Children's Activities
• Cooking Authors and Demonstrations
• Food, Beer, and Wine
• Keynote Address    
• Live Music and Poetry
• Panel Discussions and Book Signings
• Writer's Conference
• DBF Stages
• Event Schedule

That grid schedule is just a BEAR to read tho. Wish they'd redesign it. Here's some other events that pertain to blogging:

PANELS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

E-Storytelling: In which we discuss the new form of writing commonly referred to as online fiction, from short stories to comedy pieces to email-text-and-Instant-Message-as-storytelling device. 10 a.m.

• John Warner, editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
• Jack Pendarvis, author of The Mysterious Secret of Valuable Treasure, Pushcart Prize winner
• Jamie Allen, editor of The Duck & Herring Co.

Real Writers Blog: In which we discuss whether today's writers need a web site, a blog, a podcast, and/or a MySpace account.  1 p.m.

• Laurel Snyder, poet and NPR contributor
• Tayari Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling
• Touré, contributing editor with Rolling Stone
• Amy Guth, author of Three Fallen Women

I'm also interested in this session by The Atlantic Monthly fiction editor. Gotten a few rejection letters from him over the years! But I think I need special (free) registration, and I haven't heard back yet.

Magazine Fiction: In which Atlantic fiction editor C. Michael Curtis discusses the realities of rejection, cover letters, and other literary matters. 5 p.m.

• C. Michael Curtis, Atlantic Monthly, author of Faith: Stories and God: Stories.

I think you need special registration for this one too, but I know there are comedy writers in this group, so I thought I'd pass it on:

WORKSHOPS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

That's Not Funny: A Definitive Guide to Written Hilarity, Wit, and Mirth, By Prof. Rev.  John Warner, Humorologist. 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.

Political bloggers would probably love to be a fly on the wall in the $13 admission brunch with a former editor of The Nation. I dunno if any spaces are still available tho.

And one of the Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers, will also be speaking on a topic with her father.

Mark Your Calendars for the September Meeting

September 21, 7:00-9:00 PM - Leonard Witt, Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University will lead the discussion on:

Reinventing Journalism * A Do It Yourself Guide For Independents or for Mainstream Media.
See his paper at First Monday:
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_6/witt/index.html

Also, WE WILL BE MEETING AT A NEW LOCATION!!!!

Big thank you to Armchair Media for offering their space.

Directions are here.

Our official URL is LIVE!

Hey y'all, I just wanted to give you a heads up. We've finally finished adjusting the domain mapping for this site. The URL you have always been using will still work just fine, but the site is now also fully mapped to www.atlantamediabloggers.com.

So if you want to give out that URL to people in the future, because it is easier to remember, have at it!

Chris

p.s. doesn't anybody else have a Flickr account badge they'd like to share for the menu item at the right? Just send it to me and I'll put it up.

About us

The Atlanta Media Bloggers group meets the third Thursday of every month at a location to be announced from 7:00PM-9:00PM.

Most recently we've begun meeting at the Armchair Media conference room, where there's a projection screen and wifi.

Send an email here to get added to the meeting Evite list.