1 – 2 – 3 … Jump! Entering the Blogosphere.
At Netroots Nation, I attended a lot of panel discussions because I thought they’d be valuable for me, and for Mudflats. But there was one that I looked at and thought… I’m going to this one for YOU. So many of you donated to make the trip possible, and voted for my scholarship, this was my way of saying thank you with some tangible information that will help you make change where you are, whether you’re in Alaska or not.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to start a local blog? Do you have a blog already and wonder what it might be like to cover local politics? Even if you’ve never wondered, here are some good reasons to start.
Why start a local blog? First of all, local races are always close. Check back at your local voting history and you’ll see. Races in Alaska have been won by a single vote. Mark Begich won the mayoral election in Anchorage by a mere 14 votes, and his win provided a springboard. Now he is the first Democratic Senator Alaska has seen in decades. Those few people who put him in the mayor’s seat made a difference not only to Anchorage, but ultimately to the country. Glad Ted Stevens is gone? Thank local politics.
Many bloggers struggle with how to get their blog noticed. The key to this is finding a niche. Blog about your City Council, or your local Assembly. The places to go are the ones that make you ask, “If I don’t do it, who will?” Because the answer is usually, “If you don’t do it, nobody will.”
I remember when Mudflats was in its infancy, and I had gotten myself up to a hundred readers a day. I thought about it long and hard. That was a lot of people… and they were coming every day to read my blog! Imagine a room with a hundred people coming to hear you speak every day. It may not seem like many, but a hundred brains and hearts in your community can do amazing things. So I wondered what I should do to make a difference, now that I had my little troupe of Mudflatters who were actually paying attention to what I had to say.
I had been involved the year before in a project involving Anchorage’s Town Square Park. It’s a story I’ll save for another day, but it involved sitting through about a dozen mind-numbing meetings of the Anchorage Assembly. Back in those days it was pretty grim. The Assembly leaned to the very conservative side, and played lots of inside politics I didn’t like. It became clear to me at that point who was paying attention and who wasn’t, who had an agenda and who didn’t, who was trying to zing it to someone else despite the best interest of the community, who respected those who came to testify. It was quite a drama, with all the players and all the intrigue you could imagine.
One of the tricks that old Assembly played, was pushing topics that promised lots of public testimony they didn’t want to hear to the end of the meeting, to make people sit there listening to discussions of signs, and potholes, and liquor licenses, and zoning regulations – the stuff that “blinking nods” are made of. The other favorite tactic was to postpone issues entirely, so people had to come back the following week if they wanted to testify. Well, as you can imagine, the weeks went on, and citizen activism and participation waned. That’s when I started carrying a bar of chocolate in my bag as a matter of course.
It can be a soul-sucking experience. BUT, for someone on a mission…someone who says to themselves, “I will wait you out. I am not going anywhere. I will watch you and what you are doing, and I will write about it so that everyone else can understand what I see. I have more patience and more tenacity than you think I have,” it’s a gold mine of blog fodder. And I knew I had a lot to learn, but I also realized that the best way to do that is to show up and pay attention.
One of the panelists for the Community Blogs panel discussion at Netroots Nation was Paul Hogarth, who has a blog called Beyond Chron – “Chron” being the San Francisco Chronicle, whose coverage of local events has been less than stellar in the blogger’s eyes. Instead of watching his local paper ignore important issues, or mislead readers, he jumped in. He and the team cover the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ meetings to add clarification and context. Beyond Chron caught the mayor lying about the budget, telling everyone about the “$43 million in budget cuts.” It turns out it was actually $100 million in cuts. The journalists weren’t digging, and nobody else caught it.
Then there was Eli Ackerman from wecouldbefamous.blogspot.com who decided to start blogging about the crisis of leadership in New Orleans. He said that his blog is dedicated to “shedding light on inside baseball.” He advocates for progressive, socially just policies, and has discovered that there’s no better way of learning and interacting with people who share your passions than to start blogging. He’s trying to re-empower the 80% of New Orleans who voted for Barack Obama and said you’d never know the sentiments of the local population from reading the local papers.
Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg of Youngphillypolitics likes blogging local because the people you are talking to are in your own community. “As local media shrinks and dies, there aren’t a lot of people writing about the stuff that’s really affecting people’s lives,” he said. Local blogs can analyze issues in depth, far beyond what a newspaper will do. Bloggers can effectively do media critiques of how the issues are being covered by the mainstream media. “Even with a smaller amount of readers, it makes an impact. Smaller local politicians will be reading your blog. National ones may not, but locals will.”
Looking to the future, he says that the death of local media and local reporters will affect local blogs. Barriers for entry will grow because there won’t be any local material to analyze. In the future, the bloggers will have to be doing the reporting. Welcome to the new journalism, like it or not.
Brad at Progressillinois.com got funding from the SEIU to spearheaded the blog. This aggregate news outlet has had impact on many levels. Covering Chicago politics, there’s never a loss for material. He spoke about how Mayor Daley has managed to squelch any opposition in the City Council, and the local media has stopped trying to challenge him. He sees a deep cynicism and disconnect with local news coverage, and a resulting lack of knowledge about the issues. He views his job as explaining to the people why they should be outraged.
Everyone’s heard the old saying that “all politics is local.” Old sayings usually exist for a reason.
If a local blogger spots a problem in their own city that needs a wider audience, they can cross-post articles as a diary at Daily Kos, which anyone can do. There may be others out there with the exact same local problems, and enough “same local problems” equals a national problem that may have been off the radar. A great example is the nascent blog Citynomics where local watchdog Peter Schweich addresses issues of financial mismanagement in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. He wonders what other communities out there are experiencing the same phenomenon.
Citynomics will report on the growing and alarming financial instability of most municipalities in America. There are many elements creating such instability, perhaps most devastating among them: unfunded Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) liabilities in municipalities across the country that have been estimated to total more than $1.5 trillion.
He is currently soliciting input from those who see the same problems in their own communities.
If your post affects a group or organization, you can write to them and ask for them to write a post or a follow-up commentary. Send them a link to the story. The internet allows endless means of connecting to others. There’s a reason they call it the world-wide web.
Another thing that was addressed at the panel is that personal burnout is an inevitability. At that moment, I sat up straight in the audience thinking, “It IS? Uh oh…” The panel recommended setting up systems that will carry the torch in terms of local issues, and allow the workload to be spread around a little. To that end, you may have noticed the “Voices from the Flats” feature this morning, which I’m hoping to make a semi-regular feature.
There are always many important local voices, and giving them a platform is a win-win situation. They share their opinions, the blogger gets a little break, and it adds variety and interest to the blog. I guess that’s actually a win-win-win situation. So much the better. Thanks to Bob Shavelson for giving me a little time to pay some bills this morning!
The bottom line is that secrecy and lack of transparency breeds corruption. And sometimes all that’s needed for the bad things to flourish is lack of attention. Think of your community like a garden. If you don’t check it for weeds periodically, guess what will take over?
So, if you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, there’s no time like the present. You can do it for free in minutes with WordPress or Blogger. Or start attending your community council meetings or city council meetings, and write something up for a local blog that already exists. They might welcome the help. Cover the goings-on at your favorite local non-profit organization, whatever it may be. But above all, do not be silent, and don’t be afraid to try.
Questions? Put them in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Thanks again, Mudflatters.
Thank You AKM.
I feel too old to get started in something new, but,who knows???
P-Poor typer maybe 5 words a min (uncorrected).
But… even using 2 fingers and thumb on both hands I am getting better.
It does get my interest stirring though.
I truly enjoy your commenters, it is a comfortable place to be.
Thanks to you all.
“I will wait you out. I am not going anywhere. I will watch you and what you are doing, and I will write about it so that everyone else can understand what I see. I have more patience and more tenacity than you think I have,”
That’s powerful AKM. In honor of Ted Kennedy, Purpose and Passion. Thank you.
I know – off topic
Sen. Edward Kennedy died tonight
CoyoteMarti Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 6:54 PM
6 Chill asks:…how does the DailyKos diary process work?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…Start with FAQ under About, and start digging. Also helps to start skimming all diaries, …. To find like-minded others, a creative call-out in your headline would be key. Good luck .
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I was thinking in terms of finding others who maybe didn’t -shout out..
Finding like minded posters, will be a feature of my site… (Gotta get someone to program it though…) –
Thx !
thanks everybody for being so encouraging, i might have to let my fingers loose on the keyboard. thanks again.
rip teddy kennedy
i hope we get healthcare reform for you
redwoodmuse Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 8:18 PM
Dr. Chill,
Thanks. Nah, I don’t want to be the anti-bad blog, but I want to tell the truth about what is happening. We’ve caught the council in a couple of blatant lies and instead of saying ‘oops, we’ve been caught’ their response is to call the citizens liars and tell them to ’sit down and shut up’ (a direct quote).
===============
Time for a transcript, tape recording video, or just persistant fact checking. And call them on the “no-its-not-a-lie” lie, write about it in the newspaper etc … When ya got ’em ya got ’em.
And a lie and insult on top of a lie is well… worse!
$.02
A new reason to blog: there is a big big hole to fill.
Ted Kennedy has died.
A sad day for us all, as well as an opportunity to reflect on what it means to have courage and a moral compass.
One more thing I should have mentioned. Listen carefully…
It doesn’t matter how many people read your blog, it matters WHO reads your blog. I am constantly surprised by that. If you are blogging about your city council, I’ll guarantee you that some of your readers will be the city council. Your voice will be magnified more than you think! It’s like having a big megaphone right next to their ears.
Well, with all that lengthy post, I forgot to include this as an example of a blog. This was recently started by the KOMO 4 News in the Seattle area. They have set the blog up for each of the towns and they post news when it happens in each community. There is also a blog set up where people can post about anything going on in town or in their neighborhood. It’s new, so there isn’t much for my town yet, but I’m not the only one following it. I think it’s a great idea and I hope they keep it up.
http://www.komonews.com/communities
Pat
To all who are thinking of starting a local blog. Go for it! Don’t let the numbers get you down. Some days I have only 2 or 3 hits, but it adds up over time.
I’m not sure if my blog is hugely political. Some is my art work, some just the weird moments of Spenard life.
AKM, I love all your suggestions about blogging, and I really do see the need for blogging about local happenings. I couldn’t help thinking of an 80+ year old man in our town who passed away last fall. Lloyd faithfully showed up at every school board meeting, with a briefcase full of information. He routinely spoke and asked questions, and then wrote about whatever they were doing or not doing in letters to the editor. For anyone who knew him, they knew he did it because he cared about what happened to the schools and our children. I knew, though, that many people (and some school board members) thought of him as a nuisance and thought he should stop. Fortunately for all of us, he kept going and kept speaking up.
When I went to the memorial service which was open to the public, there were several hundred people there at noon on a weekday. There were people from Camp Fire (that’s the group I was in, as he and his wife had graciously allowed us to have day camp on their 20 acres for more than 30 years), people from his church, from the Chamber of Commerce, from political action committees (a lot of sad Republicans as this was after the election – lol), and most surprising to me – there were all sorts of school board members and other people from the school district, all of whom respected and liked Lloyd.
While I was reading about how to blog effectively in your excellent tutorial, I thought how beneficial it would have been if Lloyd had been able to have a blog. And he would have used it, no doubt. I just don’t think at nearly 90 he was able to tackle a computor and a blog.
I still have my Livejournal, which was my first attempt after finding on-line friends on a forum where I first plunged into the internet mysteries. But I found that it worked better to have a completely separate blog for all my Harry Potter things I wanted to say. And then I started another blog that is more personal, includes things about church and religion, that I don’t necessarily put on the other two. I don’t have many readers, but after writing in a journal for many years, it doesn’t matter to me. Blogging for me is a way to sort out my thoughts, and to sometimes comment on what is going on in the world. I do that more now that I’ve been following Mudflats for almost a year.
But honestly, it always startles me a bit when I get a comment. And I have to admit that I don’t deal well with people who want to argue with me. Writing for me has always been very personal and I rather like that aspect.
However, I do usually link one of my blogs when I leave a reply on someone else’s blog. So drop by if you’d like to check it out. I’m not very disciplined, though, about posting often. And if you really want a lot of readers I do think that is essential. If you don’t post regularly, then people tend to forget to check back to see if you’ve added something new.
Sorry this is so long, but one of the other benefits of blogging is that your writing, spelling and grammar do improve, just because you are doing it more often. And I think the idea of having a friend check for spelling and grammar errors has a lot of merit. It’s so easy to be connected with others, that it wouldn’t be hard to do.
Tina in Tennessee, I know what you mean about being annonymous and wanting to stay that way. I’ve included a lot of stuff on my three blogs and my family web page that make it fairly easy to figure out who I am. But I try to not include my actual town – saying south of Seattle is as much as I give out. I think that is something that each person needs to decide, and as we saw last winter, should have the right to determine for themselves. Whether or not someone is anonymous or not doesn’t change the importance of what they write on a blog.
One of my favorite Anchorage Assembly members, Alan Tesche who recently passed away, blogged about Assembly meetings…sometimes while he was sitting there in his Assembly seat. You could see somebody…oh, say, Dan Sullivan who’d say something stupid, and Alan would stare at them and then start typing furiously. You could tell it made him feel better. I loved his blogs. After he termed out, there was nobody to do it. That’s why I thought of doing that for a while.
I’ve always felt like my blog is my living room. I don’t think everyone has to think alike, but I don’t need people being rude in my house. Life is too short. And if I have to kick someone out, so be it. There are TONS of political blogs out there that have vitriolic debate, if that’s what you’re in to. Keep your blog comfortable for you. You don’t have to follow anyone else’s rules. It always makes me laugh when a troll will tell me I’m squashing its first amendment rights. The first amendment means you can say whatever you want on your OWN blog! 🙂 AKM
28 redwoodmuse- My 2 cents– Make it a nice community blog? …. Announcements about awards, photos of interesting events, and sights. Even lost pet announcements. Maybe feature an interview of a local person each week, a store owner, craftsperson… A real warm and fuzzy place with real down-home perspective of life in your town. Maybe people writing in the comment sections can weigh in with some politics that pertains to the subject articles (hint, hint)… You would build a local readership (and larger) that can be positioned for political things if and when the time is right and necessary. (Mother Theresa said she would rather go to a Peace Rally than an Anti-War Rally… much better vibe?) .. just brainstorming..
Dr. Chill,
Thanks. Nah, I don’t want to be the anti-bad blog, but I want to tell the truth about what is happening. We’ve caught the council in a couple of blatant lies and instead of saying ‘oops, we’ve been caught’ their response is to call the citizens liars and tell them to ‘sit down and shut up’ (a direct quote). The other blog is run by the destructive (majority) of the council. Highly unethical at the very least, but dangerous and effective.
thanks again,
redwoodmuse
who already tells the truth in the local newspaper
redwoodmuse Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 7:53 PM
and here’s a question for AKM and others…
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Just tell it. Tell it like it is.
You might want to ignore the other blog, and just cover the city council as you see it.
If you need to address info traceable back to that blog, just be objective about the info, and don’t bother to criticize the individual behind it.
Another way to address the mis-information is to make light of it.
Be clear about your true motives, and stick to your true self.
If you just want to be the Anti-bad blog, you might want to reconsider.
If you have your own vision and purpose, then do it.
Don’t get drawn into the negativity…
My $.02
To Be Anonymoose or Not Anonymoose ~
Was there any discussion at the Panel about blogging anonymoosely? What about semi-, quasi-, or is there even such a thing as being a little bit anonymous?
My main blog is anonymoose, and even though some of the dipsh!ts i write about would never figure out how to figure me out, i do write as if i’ll be ousted and called on the carpet in due time (because it wouldn’t take a forensic scientist to trace it to me). In other words, sticking to only what i know to be the truth about what goes on in my specific industry.
I don’t know why it feels more comfortable that way for right now… I was already reading ‘the flats’ when it started, so maybe it was just more of AKM’s influence.
No, there wasn’t any discussion of anonymity. I have always written as though I were accountable. I wasn’t ever sure if I’d be outed or not, but I was still accountable to me. AKM
and here’s a question for AKM and others…
I live in a small town with a very negative, inaccurate, and highly destructive blog which likes to destroy people and passes itself off as a ‘newspaper’. This blog has cost our city lots of money because folks who read it don’t come to the town which depends on tourism. Several Real Estate agents won’t even list houses here because of the negative influences of this blog.
So, how do you (I) tell the truth about city council (corrupt) and city government (corrupt and inept) while making our town look like a good place to live (it is generally) and not having it look like a ‘p****sing’ contest or a case of dueling blogs?
redwoodmuse
Hmmm… living in a corrupt place that lots of people think is scary and don’t want to visit because of it, and yet trying to tell everyone it has its good points. Kinda sounds like somewhere I know… (strokes chin) Ah, yes! Alaska! 😉 What I’ve tried to do is mix straight talk about corruption, add a dash of humor, a couple fun stories with villains and heros, reports from events, and talking about some of the great natural beauty and the wonderful people who are also here. I think it’s possible to do all those things. If you love your place, don’t give it up. You can talk about the need for improvement and still love it. I’d just pretend that “other” blog doesn’t exist. Do it for YOU, and not for anyone else. 🙂 AKM
Lexky – yeah that is pretty down on yourself!
Let me tell you something that might help. I read over 300 blogs – they are all kinds of blogs, all kinds of bloggers. I read all the mudpuppies who added their blogs to the blogroll on iheart.themudflats (if you have a blog you can do that by visiting this page – http://iheart.themudflats.net/blogroll/ -).
Nobody judges a blogger on spelling and punctuation – this is not a test, a blog is a place for you to express yourself. 😉 perfectly, or imperfectly.
If you use Firefox for your web browser, it has a built in spell check for when you leave comments or write a blog post.
One of the most popular blogs in the world is I can haz cheeseburger – where grammar, spelling, and punctuation take a holiday and the language is “lolspeak”.
So start your blog, and add it to the mudpuppy blogroll, and put the link in here when you comment, and we’ll visit. 😉
Greytdog Δ Says:
August 25th, 2009 at 5:26 PM
Any ideas where I should look to determine this board member’s city residency?
———–
sometimes it is simple….check listing in the phone book for residence and then cross check with a reverse directory….there’s your address.
— voter’s lists are helpful
–check any interviews done pre- or post appointment in the local paper – often they say thinks like ” newly appointed Mr. Blah, of the Rose Garden Area will serve……”
–and, because I’ve covered sneaky people, you might also want to go to the address and see who’s name is on the mailbox….like getting your kid into the right school, sometimes people ‘borrow’ addresses of friends and relatives…
and then, you make a big point of what doesn’t work for residents, the proponent is not a resident and why isn’t the City Council responsive…
good luck, this kind of reporting can wear you down, but it is ultimately rewarding as you watch the constituents slowly wake out of apathy….
redwoodmuse
Lexky,
Although I write all the time for certain audiences (myself, my employers), writing for The Internet can feel very daunting. It took months of lurking before I would even comment anywhere, even at this safe haven. So if you have something you want to say, and feel comfortable speaking to The Tubes, go for it… you are much farther along that path than I am!
Also, I’ll bet that as a community, we have a lot of collective editorial capability here, and could help each other out behind the scenes. The Idea People could connect with the Grammar Nerds, and voila.
And hey, look at the response you have already gotten 🙂
@lexky ~
If it took money or a college degree, i certainly would not have pummeling policies in a blog since last February. I got mad and decided enough was enough. The working title of my first post was “it’s so on”.
And lexky, my little rant probably doesn’t get 100 people a month. Although my traffic goes up when i write about scoundrels (kinda sadly). But it makes me feel like i’m not standing by the wayside ignorantly believing that it’s none of my business.
You have NOTHING to lose and everything to gain with spell-check [grin]. Where would i be with out it?
For those who are concerned about setting up a blog and think it is all too overwhelming.. I do offer blog hosting services, and I set up your blog for free – that includes customising your blog template to whatever colors you prefer. The only thing you will have to worry about is writing your posts – I set up the rest for you.
I do not charge huge sums of money for this – If you want to know more about what I do, you can click on this link –
http://www.snoskred.org/wordpress-blog-hosting
I don’t make any money from doing this though I hope maybe one day to have enough blogs that it pays for itself but it is one way for us to recover some of the costs of running the servers. It is an easy way for y’all to get up and blogging fast without having to worry about all the technical stuff – and then you can learn about it at your own pace, if you want to.
You don’t really need to be all that technical to run a blog – it is more a matter of learning how to do it. Everyone thinks I am a really technical person but actually I am not – I just take good notes, and I have people around me who I can ask if I forget how to do something. 😉 Once I have done something 3+ times, I will usually remember how to do it if I do it semi regularly.
However you decide to do it – get out there and do it! Both blogger and wordpress are fairly easy to begin with but you may find as time goes on and you do begin to learn the technical stuff that they are too easy for you and that you can’t use things like plugins or customise the comments section (blogger is the worst for that!).
Excellent post as always, AKM.
I just wanted to jump in and say, for those of you who are a little wary of starting a blog, or worried about burnout: don’t. I’m not a political blogger, but I’ve been blogging “officially” for a little over a year. If you’re blogging about something you love and/or is important to you, the words will come. I have, like three readers on a good day, but I just write as if I’m talking to a friend. Write with the assumption that you have an audience. You never know who might come across your blog. For example: I found Mudflats when it was on WordPress.com, through the front log-in page, because I wanted to know what the little boots were about. I had no idea it was a new blog back then, because AKM writes so wonderfully, and that’s what kept me coming back. Forgive me for sounding cheesy, but if you write from your heart, regardless of the topic, people will want to read it.
It is very easy to start a blog. It’s not as easy to be motivated to consistently write in it or to get rid of it when it starts getting in the way of real life responsibilities. I’ve been blogging for several years, using LiveJournal before switching to wordpress a few years ago.
Also – if any of youse have a blog, make sure you put in the URL into the “website” box in the “Leave a Reply” area; then, anyone who wants to read your blog needs only click on the link next to the avatar! Try Tina’s @ #19! Click on her name and see where you go!
thank you for all the info. i always wanted to start my own blog, i even have a name for it but i dont have a college education and putting my thoughts down in writing seems to be hard for me. punctuation and spelling are my biggest enemies. i dont want to look like an uneducated idiot. ive always wondered who would want to read my thoughts and ideas anyway. lord, i seem awfully down on myself, sorry.
maybe some people are just meant to be readers not writers.
This guy’s a big help:
http://www.copyblogger.com
AKM ~ if i show up at the Tennessee Real Estate Commission meetings in my pajamas, can i pass it off as being an eccentric blogger? Will people still believe me if i wear street clothes?
Girl, how is it you always get me so fired up?
6 Chill asks:…how does the DailyKos diary process work?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are fairly new to the site, or at least to the process, the site has a very extensive instruction manual. Start with FAQ under About, and start digging. Also helps to start skimming all diaries, not just what ends up on the Reccomended list. To find like-minded others, a creative call-out in your headline would be key. Good luck and good hunting!
12
Greytdog Δ Says: Any ideas where I should look to determine this board member’s city residency?
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For a small price you can usually purchase the local voter registration list for the county on disk. This is handy to have for any local politico. Most importantly it will have all registered voters, their party, address, DoB, and for which elections they voted in. For primaries it will list which party you got the ballot for and for closed party states like PA it will say whether you voted in the primary. If you have a decent local party someone might have put this together on line, otherwise give me a yell and I’ll do a nice little database. This is a wealth of info and endlessly interesting for the nebby like me.
@ Lee323 #16
Thanks. Now take AKM’s advice and get out there on the internets tubes with your own blog. I bet you will find a niche of your own.
@ jojobo1 #15
Thanks for the kind words. I too posted on a few papers at first. That gave me a little courage but I also found that many of my comments (although not abusive) were never posted for some reason. That is another reason why I think that the blogs are a better forum.
@ # 11 lynnrockets
Love your hilarious, intelligent, and creative blog. I think you’re waaay better than “The Capitol Steps.” Reading your blog is the perfect antidote to the negativity and anger out in political cyberspace right now. Even HuffPo is a drag these days (unless AKM is posting). The whole freaking country needs to lighten up and laugh once in a while. Thanks.
http://lynnrockets.wordpress.com/
lynnrockets I did not know you had a blog .went there and loved it.I do not have a blog but to post on several papers and other blogs even though I am not always from there state or city.Sometimes what one place does affects us all.
Most of the Progressive blogs had blogged over the weekend about Lisa Murks Town Hall debate from 8/20 and had given their opinion of it.
It is being replayed on C-SPAN RIGHT NOW if you want to listen in. Hear her answers in her own words.
Thanks AKM,
I actually had looked into blogging and found a website “Blog Basics” that still has not instilled courage; but I did learn a thing or too.
I wanted to start a blog to help people my age and younger talk to their elders about healthcare reform honestly. What is happening to our elders, and now veterans, is horrible; they’re scared.
But as I lack the courage/skills to “jump in” I have done nothing :(.
Perhaps I will gain some courage soon after pondering your wounderful and wise post! Thanks again,
pj
Locally here one of the items that seems to slip through the cracks a lot is the fact that non-residents are allowed to sit on city boards that determine public policies. Yet, I haven’t been able to get any verification from anyone concerning this. . . people have grumbled about it, but no one has pursued it. Lately, one board member has been pushing through some changes that many residents dislike but the City Council agrees with this member 99% of the time. Any ideas where I should look to determine this board member’s city residency?
@ AKM
Teriffic post. Tremendously informative and encouraging. I personally thank you and snoskred for the help and encouragement that you provided to me. I owe you folks. BIGTIME!
@ All Mudflatters (i.e. readers of this blog)
Take AKM’s advice and start a blog. It was only three short months ago that I was contributing song parodies to this site as a means to battle boredom while rehabbing from surgery as the result of a hockey injury. It was AKM and snoskred that encouraged me to start my own blog. Initially, I had no intention of doing so, mainly because I am pretty computer illiterate (and not all that smart in general) and had absolutely no idea how to create a blog. I expressed my fear/concerns to them and they offered to help guide me through the creation process.
With their help, I became a sort of Dr. Frankenstein. What I created was not pretty, but it lived. From my very first bumbling steps (i.e. asking them what the word “blog” meant) through walking (i.e. posting graphics and links) and finally running (i.e. multiple daily posts and cross-linking with other blogs), they were wonderful mentors.
My new experience with blogging has thus far been rewarding on many levels. I feel as if I have met (in a sort of internets tubey way) many interesting folks. I have learned snappy code words like, “LOL” and “LMAO” (initially I thought that meant, “left message at office” but I couldn’t figure out how these strangers knew about my office or how to reach me there). Most satisfying however, is the feeling that maybe I’m contributing something worth reading.
In those first few weeks, I would constantly monitor the statistics in “the backroom”, hoping to have 100 hits in a day. It took a little while but then things exploded for some reason and the hits multiplied geometrically. That is when the pressure set in and I realized that I would have to go to the well each day to post a song parody and accompanying article of some sort. The subject matter of my political blog could not be local in nature because I would quickly run out of source material for songs. I needed a nation full of Republican creeps to draw from. So that is what I did.
As AKM mentioned in her post, I do have the fear of burnout. Then again, there must be millions of songs out there to rip-off. In any event, I too now encourage you to get out there and blog.
i apologize for the length of this comment, but I thought a personal story might be of some help to potential bloggers.
Thanks for the info – We knew our investment would pay off! 🙂
I wish I had known who was who…I was at that panel as well!!
This is very humbling, AKM. Because caring and voting is good. But doing is better. Thank you for doing!
“Build it and they will come”. -Field of Dreams
This touches on the project that brought me to netroots.
I hope to provide a framework for local civic projects and organizations to find each other and share resources and knowledge.
Somewhere in this framework will be a welcome spot for watchdogs and whistle blowers, and uh yeah muckrakers.
I wrote a bit about it here:
https://themudflats.net/forum/index.php/topic,7513.msg79823.html#msg79823
Like they say at Nike – Just do it.
Question for AKM – do you have a list of -“Muckraking documents?”
And – how does the DailyKos diary work? How would one local blogger in one town find another with a similar interest 1000 miles away?
Best investment we ever made was sending you to Netroots Nation! Great post!
That panel inspired me as well. I plan to start a blog in my community.
It was at that panel, also, too, where I first laid eyes on AKM – in person!
A dangerously good idea, AKM. I believe I may take the plunge!