The Saturday afternoon session of the Rust Belt Bloggers Summit went very well indeed. We had representation from Erie, Youngstown, Butler and Pittsburgh. (Folks from Cleveland and Buffalo, as well as other areas, had inquired but weren't able to make.)
We all went around and introduced ourselves, and talked about why we were here. It was clear that everyone had a passionate devotion to their city, and also to the region. What felt particularly good was that this wasn't driven by politicians seeking to get votes or media folks ultimately looking for advertising dollars; this was purely voluntary and didn't feel like it was driven by ulterior motives. It was also very respectful of autonomy. Several people talked about best practices or things that had worked for them, but there was never a sense that any person was trying to force something on everyone else.
The group is talking about meeting face to face maybe every 6 months to a year. Other ideas that were bounced around were maintaining an email list and/or a Wiki. We also discussed the advantages/disadvantages or open blog rolls for an area, versus categorizing by topic. Phil from Defend Youngstown shared info about raising consciousness and increasing email contacts by selling T-Shirts (12,000!) The folks from Pittsburgh also had some wonderful insights and ideas.
Just looking forward to seeing how it goes.
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