good article on Jill Miller Zimon also mentions MeetTheBloggers

From Women’s eNews, here’s an article featuring our friend Jill Miller Zimon in “Journalist of the Month” and announcing her entry into local Pepper Pike politics. Gloria just told me Jill is filing her petitions at the Board of Elections right now, which is just before lunch time. In the article, Jill gleans many good comments, among them the following:

On Feb. 23, the day before Limbaugh's women's summit, a Public Polling Study showed Limbaugh--known in some circles for saying "feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream"--has a major gender gap on his hands. In the poll 56 percent of men surveyed expressed a favorable opinion of Limbaugh, while 37 percent of women.

On the day of the summit, Miller Zimon ran excerpts of the Limbaugh program along with her comments, which were sent around the Internet by e-mail and picked up by several other blogs, including ThinkProgress.org, The Moderate Voice, and The Huffington Post.

Miller Zimon's citizen journalism earns the respect of Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor, and author of the influential media blog PressThink. "She has her feminist group base, and a local political base, and some new media people and Cleveland bloggers," says Rosen. "I like the way she knits together the local and the national, the political and the personal, without getting sentimental."

In writing for this diverse community, Miller Zimon is succeeding at blogging in the deepest sense, says Rosen. "The greatest characteristic of blogging is that personal expression can have the publishing might of big companies. That's the big promise of it and that's why she's successful."

There’s also mention of the influence of the MeetTheBloggers experience:

Since 2005, Miller Zimon's concern about transparency of local politics, and the power of blogging, led her to attend and blog about almost 40 local "Meet the Blogger" forums in which notable Ohio politicians and other civic leaders faced bloggers and their questions in person.

That helped spur her decision to run for public office.

"Meet the Bloggers helped expose me to just how normal people pursue politics, and why," says Miller Zimon. "Complaining and writing about it can only get you so far . . . "

Citizen Blogging Boosts Zimon into Local Politics

Bus.The.Bloggers road trip

SENT VIA EMAIL

Dear Blogger Pals--

Would you believe that nobody has stepped forth to write a check for $50,000 to send a busload of bloggers and community-dialoguers from Cleveland to Akron to Columbus to Cincinnati to DC and back again?

Can you even begin to imagine that nobody as yet wants to sponsor an exercise to bind Ohio together, in wholly public discourse, from the road and from the capital and then from the road again, over 4 wired and connected days from January 18-21? To have the content posted forever on the internet as blogs and tweets and podcasts and videos? To usher in the new intergenerational Woodstock on wheels?

I offered the Greater Cleveland Partnership the opportunity to write a half-check for $25,000 to send us on a one-way trip and not come back--something I thought they might snap up-- but nobody got back to me.

My rolodex was out of date when it came to calling Mike White down there with the alpacas or the llamas, so I called around and found everybody else had trouble reaching him, too. I was hoping he would be able to make the call to Sam Miller so that Sam could get behind the "participatory democracy" he holds so dear.

I tried to get a news operation to partner with us by sending along embedded journalists; the blog-based Huffington Post didn't seem to understand, and one of their blogger/journalists, Paul Krassner, is still too bunged up from a 70s police beating to put in 4 days on the road (Paul knew Magic Bus people like Ken Kesey and Wavy Gravy and is a piece of walking/limping history himself). I was going to try to embed Dick Feagler, recently available, I hear, because of his prior successes at interfacing with the blogosphere, but I didn't want to ask him outright until I had the trip paid for.

I've established a couple of things, or a few:

--Nobody who wants to ride the bus has enough money to carry the whole thing off, and doesn't know anybody who could help at the last minute

--There are no civic-minded sugar daddies out there who specialize in making seminal events happen, at least not among our contacts

--There may be more than one way to skin a cat.

Therefore, it's now time for all of you who think that the Blogger Bus needs to roll out of here tomorrow to begin to ASK SOMEBODY TO GIVE US A BUS FOR 4 DAYS. Dan Gilbert over at the Cavs might have one, or the Dolans may have one that's not being used next week, or the Browns organization may have one that needs to be exorcised by having joyous riders for a change.

After somebody gives you the bus, then ask them where's the food going to come from? Then, ask to borrow their air card. It's simple. Like back in the days when everybody went to San Francisco.

Hey, I've blogged this a bit at--

http://timferris.blogspot.com/2009/01/january-18-21-blogging-from-bus.html

--and I've Facebooked it at--

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/192544?m=49f3b4f1

I've asked some of our politicians, but some were immobilized by fear of conflicts and others thought that, if this were a proper thing to do, their brilliant Washington staff would have already told them about it.

Gloria this morning told me to leave this whole thing alone, that people would start thinking I was crazy, and I thought, "Yeah. So what else is new?"

It's been fun. Call me or email me or tweet me when you get a bus, or a check for food for 40 people for 4 days, or blog it or make a video and stick it up on U-Tube, or even call WKYC or the PD first--I don't care. What I do know is that we can fill the bus in a heartbeat, create a heck of a lot of good will, create great content and post it for time immemorial to the internet, and bring three generations together on a very favorable basis, conducive to telling stories that need to be told and tales that need to be kept in the public consciousness.

I'm going to the market now, before it closes. I have no Plan B yet. I still have faith in Plan A's being executed by a group of bloggers and other people of good will on a bus, somehow, so open-source it and see what happens.

Tim Ferris
taferris@gmail.com
216-255-6640
http://timferris.blogspot.com

January 18-21: blogging from the bus

A few days ago, on the 7th, a friend in Cincinnati proposed sending out a blogger call for a road trip in conjunction with the inauguration. The response was pretty positive. Today, we have the resources lined up and the plan partially fleshed out. Tomorrow, we start pounding the phones for money.

To this point, we have a bus reserved for 4 days. It carries 55 and has two drivers. It will start in Cleveland late on the 18th, stop in Akron, and hit Columbus at midnight. From there, it will proceed to Cincinnati, where there is an event at 3 PM, after which it will go on to DC, where it will arrive sometime early in the morning of the 20th and disgorge its load at the end of a T1 line, where the load will proceed to live blog and tweet and stuff for the entire day. We have made arrangements for clearance papers--I guess it involves the metropolitan police and the Secret Service. Then, on the 21st, it's back home. Coming and going, there will be photo ops and other media events.

We have lodging arranged for the only night when a bed will be possible, between the 20th and the 21st. A few other people and I are getting the money together for the bus, for food and lodging, and for a modest amount of walking-around money for each participant. Gloria and I can't go due to her recent retrofit, but we can certainly get vicarious. The bus will populate itself, we think, with three generations--it's a great opportunity for recording oral histories and the varied perspectives of the past 50 years.

Tomorrow, in addition to sponsorship, we'll be trying to get in-kind participation, as in air cards and wireless services. If we could blog and tweet all the way from Cleveland to Akron to Columbus to Cincinnati to DC and back, wouldn't that be a marvelous advertisement for a new wired America? The bus trip is a story in itself, and there are lots of other stories within that story.

blogging as an economic cornerstone

Six Apart - Blog - Changes at Six Apart: The people from whom we purchase TypePad for some of our other blogs are making some changes in staffing levels. One thing that stood out for me was the following quote, leading into a larger discussion of SixApart's providing an economic cornerstone for enterprise:

"We've been reminded lately that blogging was born out of the last recession in 2001 - 2002, and that during tough economic times creative voices look to powerful, cost-effective ways to connect and communicate with the world around them."

Malay Blogger Fights a System He Perfected - NYTimes.com

Malay Blogger Fights a System He Perfected - NYTimes.com -- Our incredibly credentialed friend Jill has sent us a really fine story of blogging advocacy, and I share it here:

What I do when I don't have time to blog this stuff

I send it to you :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/world/asia/06blogger.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/world/asia/06blogger.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Jill Miller Zimon
Newsweek's The Ruckus
BlogHer Contributing Editor
The Moderate Voice
Writes Like She Talks
See or listen to
Jill on CNN, BBC, WCPN, Third Rail Radio
jillzimon@mac.com

Six Apart - Blog - politics and blogging

Here's an excerpt from a post-election post by Anil Dash, from SixApart/TypePad/Movable Type.

Now that the election is over, we're sincerely hoping that politicians across the political spectrum, and citizens of any stripe, will demand that these social publishing tools be used for a lot more than just raising funds online or getting out the vote. We firmly believe that our platforms, used intelligently and in combination with the many other services and networks on the web, can be powerful tools for better governance.

Blogging, especially when combined with a social publishing platform that bridges multiple social networks, is far too powerful a medium to be dragged onto the national stage once every four years. If, as has so often been stated, this is a "change election" here in the United States, then we hope that one change we'll see, not just at the national level but at a state and local level, is our government making better use of the web.

Given the long tradition of bloggers leading the conversation around politics, policy and government, we hope to play a part in encouraging government to make the same leap into the social web that so many of us have made in our personal and professional lives

Six Apart - Blog - Barack Obama and Blogging

wrap-up of MeetTheBloggers/WKYC election night collaboration

bloviate

Op-Ed Columnist - Obama Outwits the Bloviators - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com -- If I had to look this one up, I'd suspect some of you may have to, too. Here it is.

And I'm resisting the temptation to make some totally immature, scurrilous remark, to coin a new catchphrase for the next 2 months, and then to do ecstatic pirouettes, verbal permutations, and semantic combinations around the adolescent coinage, rolling on the floor laughing. God help me with this Tourette's of the keyboard, and the near-total editorial freedom of the blog format.

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: Joining the Blogosphere

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: At Lincoln House - March 2008 -- Well, they MetTheBloggers over a year ago, and now here they come with their own blog. Apparently, it's contagious. Welcome to the blogosphere.

fuhgeddaboutit

I just couldn't make CoverItLive go this time around, so I've taken it off the right sidebar, for now. Maybe later.

I'll be using Live Writer and posting with a bit more of a delay than I anticipated.

a new face on planet NEO

Rob Hawkins has redone his aggregator Planet NEO, and it's lovely. Note the functionality of the tag soup.

Bloggapalooza 2.0+

We'll have to do this often, and annually.

This is our second run through, and it keeps getting better. This has come to be our annual review: I see things changing in our local community, and I see people undergoing transformations. They are coming together and beginning to trust in and rely on each other. They aren't looking beyond themselves for solutions. They are finding out that they themselves are the answer and hold the secret to finding the new keys.

This has come to be about MeetTheBloggers, and lots more: the NEO and the Ohio blogospheres, CoolCleveland, the new media, BrewedFreshDaily, RealNEO, art, aggregators, politics, community, books, coaching, ideas. Communicating. Integrating. Changing. Becoming healthy and wealthy again.

This entire dynamic is leading to other things. There are new players. There's a new game in town.

I want to let everyone know that I want and appreciate the friendships we've established over these past few years circulating throughout the blogosphere and Ohio; without MeetTheBloggers, the Cleveland Weblogger Meetups, and George, things wouldn't have gone so quickly, or so well.

spending Sunday with LibraryThing

LibraryThing Catalog your books online --I was reading around the blogs this morning when I stumbled across LibraryThing on Derek Arnold's a subset of derek. That was probably around 1030, and it's now more than 6 hours later, and I've had a ball. I've been dragging out all the books that are easy to reach and cataloguing them online. I'm listing only the ones I've read all the way through or use fairly often. The first 200 are on the house, and it's only $25 for a lifetime of reading and cataloguing after that. There is an intermediate annual plan as well, and a blog, where there's a contest going on for $1,000 worth of books.

rethinking blogging logistics

The Travels of Dan Moore, III -- Perhaps posting to a draft, having the pit crew edit, and then publishing final would work better, in conjunction with links to inimitable-Dan podcasts.

"The Internet has been a great disappointment. I planned to dictate blogs on my digital recorder, send the digital file to the office via email for transcription, and then review the written version myself via email. The crew at my office would do a final edit to add the right tone and a little humor, and then post the blog to the net. As it turns out, I have only been able to dictate sporadically over the phone, and Carolyn, Nancy and Laura have carried the main transcription, editing, and posting burden. DTMCo may have the only “blog pit crew” in town that can correctly spell the names of the central Asian republics, their capitals, their leaders, and the premiere resorts and hotels. Many thanks to my blog pit crew for keeping the site running.

"Today in Kazakhstan, I have finally been able to access the Internet. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are apparently frightened of widespread use of the Internet. Azerbaijan is too slow, and in Georgia it worked occasionally. Next trip I will have a SAT phone system that is entirely independent of internet access. "

well, isn't that special . . .

Blogger & Podcaster -- I just stumbled across this magazine catering to a new target market. They emailed me a complimentary access to the online interactive edition, and I would imagine you could get one, too. It turns out that blogs are becoming a driving force in "moving the masses." They also act as the filtration system for choosing podcasts. The content here in B&P validates what your gut already knows, and it's comforting. George Nemeth was (and still is) years ahead of his time creating the synergy between BFD and the other area blogs with MTB. Such a smart boy, such a mother's angel . . ."This is a nice boy. This is a good boy. This is a mother's angel. And I want the world to know once and for all, and without any shame, that we love him."

gas at 10 cents a gallon, with drugs, meditation, and long motorcycle rides to quiet the inner voices

The Travels of Dan Moore, III -- Dan has another installment on his motorcycle road trip, and there's some really good stuff there. It's frustrating when it all cycles into a *.PDF link on the arrival of the next installment.

I wish somebody had set him up right on his "blog" before he left; a true blog format, as opposed to a pseudo-blog web-page format has a dynamism that survives and endures long after the journey is past.

friendly riders of The Silk Road

The Travels of Dan Moore, III -- Local businessman Dan Moore has entered the blogosphere from the Orient; all May he has been recounting his adventure motorcycle trip as he and an international bike gang of clean-cut, friendly riders with computers and SAT phones tool from Istanbul to Xian, China. This latest post has Dan wiping out and wrecking his computer and then giving laundry tips that are more Erma Bombeck than Heloise, something about composting your drawers. There's some really good stuff here, far better than the typical travelogue. It's not really in a blog format, so I don't know if RSS feeds will keep us updated, but you need to spend some time with Dan and his gang of middle-class, middle-aged marauders. We're now breathlessly waiting for Marge and the cavalry to arrive with new equipment. Stay tuned.

Perhaps Dan can MeetTheBloggers when he comes back intact.

TNR on netroots

The netroots is the most important movement since the Christian right -- I got this heads up from The New Republic, on the subject of netroots. It's long, but it's comprehensive. Here's the editor's take; the sign-in is free:

This week's magazine also includes an essay by Jonathan Chait on the left's new organizational infrastructure--a constellation of liberal bloggers and activists called the netroots. These activists have modeled themselves explicitly on the rise of the conservative movement. In fact, Chait argues that the netroots have grown into the most important political movement to arrive on the scene since the Christian right. When historians discuss the netroots in the decades to come, they will undoubtedly refer back to Chait's elegant and erudite essay.

inaugural launch of The Real Deal: Now is the accepted time

The Real Deal--I got an email this morning announcing this new NEO blog by our friend Richard Andrews, whom we know through the Meet.The.Bloggers sessions at I-Open's Mid-Town Brews at WebTego and through Mid-Town Mornings at Nead Brand Partners. Are you beginning to see how the networks work, and what the names are and the brands imply? Attribution is hard because there's so much collaboration and overlap, but I hope everybody's beginning to get the picture.

But, back to The Real Deal. Richard is a writer with a track record that goes back a good while. The Real Deal shows promise of being just that. Go there now. I'll meet you.

prancing lightweights

RE: Jennifer Brunner's Son Right Angle Blog - Ohio's Online Conservative Community -- Here's the note from me that Matt Naugle mentioned as being "negative." I intended it to be instructive and defining. These jejune political-specialty bloggers are twisting and perverting our political dialogues still further, to a point where we have prancing lightweight posers and gossip-mongers purportedly speaking for all of us. These Blackwell boy-acolytes are not my Republican party. My note follows:

Matt, it seems you've created a little stir in the blogosphere this morning with that cheap shot using the Brunner kid. This is the kind of cheesy, low-level, inconsequential baiting that keeps us all from moving forward as a community--you're trying to divide people who should be working together.

The worst thing about it all is that you say you're doing this in the name of conservatism and the Republican Party. Please, don't pretend to be speaking for the rest of us.

We may be in the same party, but we're not on the same team.

My team builds community and works for the good of all the people, not just for a particular shrill, fringe faction of a party now in decline in this state because it got too
self-righteous.