aspire to enquire

Here's hoping

Spotted in Grand St area over the summer. 

Fingers crossed. 

We shall see.

Furry happy monsters

Inspired by Amelia Torode, something to cheer you up if you've had a bit of rubbish day.

Talking blogs against a sea of troubles

!!! Huge mis-informed generalisation alert !!!

There's a debate this Tuesday in the Welsh Assembly entitled 'to blog or not to blog', it's a 'debate on the value of political blogging'. It seems to be raising a lot of questions and debate even before it actually takes place, I guess mainly because part of the title implies that there will be people arguing that there is no value in political blogging.

I'm going to go along, but I'm suspecting advance that one of the key questions that will keep coming up will be 'what is a blog?' and 'what is it for?'…

What is a blog?

Obviously we all know that a blog is a web page maintained by a small number of people which more often than not contains opinion or observational texts. But I think the real question will be on categorising the different kinds of blogs. Broadly speaking, I think there are three:

Spout(rant) Blog. (My site is generally one of these) In most posts on a Spout Blog, people just post up their comments on a particular issue without any real constructive attempt at dialogue. These posts may also be highly personal. These are often negative posts that don't engage with much more than one side of one issue, assuming that the reader is aware of the other sides. The comments usually simply agree or give longwinded disagreements. The frequency of posts is medium to high and they usually rely mostly on text.

Supply Blog. You see these a lot in the cultural sphere, posts here are usually aggregators of other online resources, posting up nice images, videos, etc. The frequency of posts is high. Comments usually along the lines of 'nice' or 'thanks for posting'

Discussion Blog. (My site aspires to be one of these) Where a post will contain an interesting application of a theory or opinion to a particular event or ongoing discussion. Perhaps it will identify a new area for discussion. Offering opportunities for further reading, the post draws in references from other people's blog posts on similar subjects, and will itself be referenced in future. The comments section is usually vibrant and thoughtful. The frequency of posts is medium and they will usually contain a mixture of text and supporting imagery.

Now I'll be honest here and say that I haven't read a lot of political blogging in my time. But a look through the blogroll of one prominent Welsh blog site seems to place most of the content in the spout category: Observations on current day's political developments, predictions on upward (or downward) movements of politicians, scandal and so on. In short, a lot of issues that are, most of the time of great interest to those working in or very engaged with politics, but not really of much consequence to those outside that realm. Which brings me to the next question:

What is it for?

It might just be coincidence that this debate is taking place whilst we are seeing the execution of one the biggest and most convincing case studies in favour of social media to date, over the Atlantic, in Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign. His campaign has harnessed the power of blogs, online social networks, user-generated content, viral, and resulted in unprecedented fund-raising thanks to a completely new model based on small contributions from a much wider community than in the past.

There are always the questions of unedited, un-journalistic, sometimes anonymous posts that qualified political commentators will always take issue with, and I can see a lot of their points. After all, political commentary has been done for years, better. But what Obama has proved is that it's about something a lot more than that. People with a much better grasp of these things than me have been saying this repeatedly. It's about the Conversation.

More of this, please. © me 2008

Instead of making short, snide criticisms of nothing much in particular, why not use your blog in a way that will actually extend outside 'politics' per se. 

If Government powers and lobbyists are serious about engaging with younger voters, just 'blogging' isn't going to help anyone. This is going to sound terribly middle aged, but they need to be where the young people (or whoever their target audience is) are: 

Why not set up a twitter search feed on a particular issue that your party or organisation is campaigning on. Whenever someone mentions it via twitter, you can reply and get a Conversation started. 

Why not engage with musicians with political standpoints by inviting them for a pint and filming the discussion? Start making friends with the band's friends on myspace and posting the video in a bulletin.

Why not ask new designers and art students to interpret briefs that are relevant to both you and them? 

And by all means, post the results on a blog. You start to bring a community together that might transcend the four classifications of online communities. But my opinion would be that at no point in this process to you specifically campaign on your issue. 

For me, blogging has been about finding common ground. Party Political alignment, or support for your cause, will come naturally when the time comes, if you have already been engaging and constructive in your dialogue.

So I guess the real question isn't 'to blog or not to blog', but 'why blog'. 

If you'll be in the area, there are details of the event listed at the Bevan Foundation's website.

The Girl Effect

Found via swissmiss , a beautiful video with a powerful message.

Isn't today the birthday of Feminism, or something? Not sure how this relates, but a good point well made. Find out more at the girl effect.

Summed up nicely, thank you

I was just reading this post from Paperlillies and I was suddenly just 'yeah, me too' so I thought I'd put it up here.

Except for the bit about Callianne and the restaurant, obviously.

I've had the most mental but amazing few weeks which has meant I've been picking up lots to blog about, but not had time to write it. Hopefully this week will be a bit better and I can get some Brighton and New York thoughts up.

UK 3rd-biggest importer of illegal timber

This news, from lovelyasatree, is shocking stuff. A year out of date, so maybe progress has been made, but still. Not good.