Passion and Community
And because I just wrote this nice and long piece that includes some of what I was about to blog about tonight, I’ve decided to just paste and leave a link to where I posted it.
original: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=64810#64810
This is a good thread.
It just goes to show the great passion around here. Definitely great to see
Channel 9 has changed a lot since the very first time I joined over a year ago.
This place continues to change with each new member.
As all dynamic communities do with the injection of new members.I’ve been a member of many online communities
for a long time. And this is one of things I’ve noticed. I’ve been with a few that I’ve watched grow up from being just an idea, to flourish into something with many active members. There’s no secret ingredient to this – yet. So it’s still a trial and error thing sometimes.Community feedback from members helps change the approach in a positive fashion in the future. Feedback from a community I feel also gives the community a sense of direction and purpose.
Having had this thread started gives important feedback to Scoble & team on perhaps what to do/not to do in the future when organising something like this. Organising these sorts of events is never going to be easy. Some individuals will feel like they missed out, others might feel one or two that had been nominated should not have been. So I guess perhaps speak up now on who you want to nominate.
It’s kind of tough to be in Scoble’s position.
In a perfect world he perhaps would rather not exclude anyone at all if he could. But the fact is he has to choose 20. 20, out of how many bloggers out there?Size of the blogosphere is smaller, but, still quite large, even if you just count the “tech” bloggers.
By my reckoning, Scoble is just trying to pinpoint a few “hubs”. 20 in fact. 20 web hubs that will provide feedback on the behalf of those who connect with the hub. That’s not to say you can’t come to Channel9 and write your own Longhorn feedback, or even on your own blogs.
This is why I feel that Robert has enlisted the help of bloggers. He wants people to nominate those they feel are going to provide the feedback that needs to be said. The general consensus amongst the community. Or in particular, different “segments” of the community.
Realistically, these “hubs” will be very diverse in nature, coming from so many different backgrounds with differing computing experiences, and requiring different needs from the OS. Speaking of diverse, I’ve yet to see any female tech bloggers being nominated.
The reason why I decided to specifically nominate someone who is a very active community member in the Australian region is because I felt he was someone who many in the region reads. Is passionate about many computer related topics, and is known to have provided feedback to MS teams about certain topics he and others in the community feel strongly about. What feedback? Well, from memory it was something that was submitted to the Ladybug feedback system.
But these “hubs” need to really be able to communicate, and communicate well. Not just in a written sense, but also vocally at user groups, and other places.
It’s not really trying to flood the blogosphere or even taint it in any way shape or form. The blogosphere consists of several million individuals and continues to grow everyday. Each blog represents an individuals’ opinion on a topic. If you don’t agree with what was said, you can either leave a comment, or start your own blog and write an opposing argument to that particular topic.
Everyone has different opinions.
It’s just that these 20 suddenly become authorities on the topic of Longhorn because they have the inside story.
You know, by inviting everyone who reads blogs (I’m sure you all do these days) to nominate an individual that they feel are accessible and will pass your feedback onto the Longhorn team(s) is important when deciding who to nominate. It isn’t a popularity contest yah know? It might feel like one, but it’s not.
I’m sure Robert will be weighing up the pro’s and cons of the individual by the reasons given in their nominations as well as checking out the various blogs to have a look at the past history of those bloggers.
I’m sure as Robert has done in the past for other topics, he’ll probably setup a Pubsub feed (if he hasn’t already done so) for the keyword “Longhorn”. And perhaps another for “Longhorn sucks”.
As for another topic that comes up a lot, the question of “why blog?”… Well… Are you passionate about something? Wouldn’t you like to share your passion with anyone who cares about or might care about that topic? If so, then blog about it and don’t be surprised if you get replies of either agreement or disagreement.
[Note: This post was originally written in ink, but due to the limited size, and my larger handwriting size... Had to convert it to text. -- Everything looks small on this Tablet PC!]
You know, communities are full of very passionate individuals who all have opinions/frustrations on many topics.
So how do you harness all those thoughts of so many into blog posts? How do you get them all to start blogs to share their thoughts to those who may be outside the normal wall of an offline community?
There are many people at the user groups that I goto that just know so much about so many topics you sometimes wish you could just record those thoughts and share it with the world.
Note: Sorry for the rather long entry. But then, I never liked short blog entries The longer ones generally contain more “fluff” that can be skipped over.