JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Doug Kaye at IT Conversations has posted the mp3 from the Emotional Life of Weblogs session at BloggerCon III. It was a small group, but through the recording, I hope many others can participate in the session and share the experience. Thanks again to everyone who came, and to Doug for all his work. Ted and I are big fans of IT Conversations and I’m thrilled to be included. To follow Steve Kirks’ example I’d like to point out the tip jar. Doug has now posted all the sessions of BloggerCon III: thanks!

I have a hard time summarizing the session: I recommend listening to it! As I played the mp3 tonight I realized what fun it was to hear the stories everyone had to share. The session is a mosaic of voices, glimpses into the people behind the posts, a busy discussion bouncing around the room. We talked about what we choose to say, how we say it, and what has happened in our lives through our blogs. Sentences and phrases, but more than the words, the sentiments and intimacy, remain with me after listening again.

Since I posted a list of quotes and comments on the session, Jay Dedman has posted his comments and a video from BloggerCon.

The integration of work/public self and private self was a hot topic in the session. Since then, I noticed that Joey deVilla linked to an article describing his experience being hired at TuCows: Net diarists blog their way to a job. Of course it is possible to blog oneself out of a job, as this story that happened close to my home revealed. And this blogger story was a sad one.

This week Frank Paynter conducted a survey and compiled answers to the question Why do we blog?. It’s a great collection to read; thanks, Frank. I feel that the reasons why I blog are in this session. The reasons why I blog are include the multiple topics we discuss. But most of all, I blog for this sense of connection and the community we build. And I blog so that I can be in the midst of a room of strangers and yet feel I am at home. Thanks again to everyone: I hope you feel the same.

forgot to mention that I’ve added a list of bloggers at the emotional life session (many of them were written on the white board) to the sidebar of my blog