Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

summit

This evening my office hosted a summit for local bloggers who write about life in the D.C. area. The event featured a panel q&a with Post and post.com editors and bloggers, a mini-seminar on Internet libel law and a “here are some ideas we’re working on — what do you think?” discussion. There were a number of interesting ideas put forth about ways we can better work with the local blogging community, some tracking with things we’ve already been working on and others that are definitely worth considering.

On a sheer “meetup” level, it was fascinating to connect names / blogs with faces, seeing folks like the DCist crew or Wash Cycle, for instance — blogs I read regularly — in person. I’ve been toying with the idea of attending a Washington Blogger Meetup for months; after this (and their decision to move the event to the more Metro-friendly RFD this month), maybe I’ll give the Jan. 17 meetup a go.

After the event, I introduced myself to one of the DCist writers sitting in front of me. (Long story short: I thought I’d seen her a couple months ago taking notes at the 9:30 Club for a DCist review, but I must have confused her with someone else.) Mistaken identity aside, I’m glad I said hello; she seemed really nice.

Even more surreal: As we left the conference room, a woman in front of us turned around and asked, “Are you Aly? Rants and Ramblings? I like your blog!” (This has never happened before.) She introduced herself and I had that horrible nagging “God, I know you from somewhere” feeling but couldn’t place her. I realized the connection when I got home: She’s one of my contacts on Flickr. What a tiny, tiny world.

(I was going to take a couple photos during the event, but I realized too late that my camera’s memory card had gone missing. I gave the condo a thorough search when I returned home, but the card apparently had vanished into the wilds of my living room. Right now, the contents of my purse are splayed across my kitchen counter, the result of an increasingly frantic effort to find the SD card. The mess is actually kind of cool-looking, almost photo-worthy. Alas.)

Being a bit of a Technorati addict, I looked up the response so far to the event as soon as I got home:

• Someone from Metroblogging DC did a pseudo liveblog of the last portion of the evening. (Random aside: I liked that a couple of the guys at that table were wearing spiffy Metroblogging DC t-shirts for the event.)
• Confessions of an Undercover Geek had some thoughts as well.