1. The Kids Room
Family friendly from the beginning, the conference only became more attractive to parents and caregivers with the addtion of a kids room this year.

2. NetSquared North
I was grateful for the opportunity to sit in on one of the NetSquared sessions during Moose Camp and I hope that this chance to mix and share ideas and perspective will happen again.

3. Affordability
How can you argue with a conference that is $20 or $30 a day?! I appreciate that the organizers have worked hard to keep costs low. Affordability also impacts accessibility, who can come.

4. Diversity
The organizers chose a number of women to speak at Northern Voice, and also a number of topics. Was it my warped perspective, or I thought last year had more gender equity in attendees? Regardless of precise statistics, I have a sense that the organizers of NV value diversity and want more of it.

5. Community participation
Moose Camp certainly accentuated this aspect, but I think NV in general is open to whatever community members would like to organize. For example, last year Roland and I put together a dim sum brunch on Sunday.

6. Focus
I’m grateful that NV has chosen to focus on the social and cultural aspects of blogging. As I read through the posts that appeared while searching Technorati for “Northern Voice” I noticed that at least a few people would have preferred more sessions on business blogging. I don’t know if the organizers will chose to change NV or set up two different visions for the conference, but at NV I feel like a fish in water (as opposed to a fish out of water, as I do at other conferences).

7. Risk – taking
The organizers of NV are willing to take risks. They try new speakers. They try new ideas, such as Moose Camp or BBQ at Stanley Park. They are willing to experiment and find what works. NV has also become a conference where speakers and others can take risks too.

8. Heart
Both those who organize the conference and those who come are passionate for blogging. The organizers put in hours of their own time, and so do other volunteers. And I get the feeling that many of those who come are coming on their own dollar and time, certainly their own Saturday shared. There’s an electricity that can’t be bought.

9. People
The people who come to Northern Voice and the people who put it together are some of my favorite bloggers. So yes I’m biased. It’s a great place to meet up with old friends and make new ones. What more can I say?

10.Schwag
We’re still using our sxip mug from 2005 and the buttons from 2006 will be remembered! Those Bloggable tees are pretty cute too!

11. Vancouver
Yes, really!

Ideas for possible changes

I found that the MooseCamp time slots of 30 minutes were much too short. I know that shorter slots allows more sessions, but I would have liked longer time on a topic.

More hands-on experiences would be helpful and fun. For example, I somehow thought that we would make and share movies in the One-Minute Movie session. Once I realized it was only 30 minutes, I knew that wasn’t possible, but perhaps a 1 – 2 hour time slot would allow people to make and share movies with each other – cool! I like Ken Rickards ideas too.

On a social note, I would have liked to have had some snacks. Bonding happens around food. Yes, I know this would have increased the cost, but perhaps we could each bring a snack to share, like we did at Mind Camp. Just an idea.

What would happen if Moose Camp were scheduled after Northern Voice? I wonder whether it would help make the Camp more relaxed, help fill in some of the blanks, so to speak, missed by the conference (it can’t cover everything), and also help continue conversations and connections began at NV. (melomel has also posted this idea.)

Also, perhaps provide a little more time for speakers to prepare (by soliciting proposals and notifying speakers slightly earlier in the year). At least I know I could have used it!

Thanks to the hundreds of people who made Northern Voice 2006 happen!

Looking forward to 2007…!

But this session became a great time of conversation between panelists and audience, dialogue and microphone moving across the stage and across the theater, lively, fresh, insightful and intimate. Kris Krug was an awesome moderator, stepping into the role only days earlier. More than one of us had considered teasing him about his own relationship but he was quite interested and thoughtful, listening, learning and teasing Chris a bit too.

Chris Pirillo and Latthana “Ponzi” Indharasophang shared from their experience blogging about their relationship. I appreciated their honesty and openness. Chris expressed how he is different in different places, how the person he is on his blog is not who he is in your living room. I have seen this from personal experience, getting to know him, noticing that he doesn’t show up at my house dressed in bubble wrap or wearing RSS written on his chest. Chris is intentional about which sides of himself he reveals, and yet he also reminded us that we never see all sides of anyone, even ourselves. A small thing can look very large (to others) in blogs, Chris emphasized. He pointed out that people see themselves in your posts (in other words, people don’t listen to who you are but respond from what they think you are, projecting themselves onto you). Ponzi said that in contrast to Chris’s intentilonal multiple sides, she is who she is on her blog, She puts herself there. Ponzi did quite well on the panel, especially given the circumstances. I appreciated both of their perspectives and found both to be valid and refreshing.

Maryam Scoble described what it was like to be Robert’s wife, to have many people know who she was or at least think they knew her, yet she had not written or said anything herself. She opened my eyes to the perspective of those who only exist online through other’s blogs and eyes. Darren’s blog widow also asked a question along this aspect. It seemed to me that one of the reasons Maryam started blogging was to have her own voice and represent herself, as well as show what it is like to be married to Robert. It was great to hear from her.

Jen Wiederick told stories and gave illustrations from her dating life. I’d only read her blog for a few weeks so I did not yet know the different ways she blogs about her relationships. I was intrigued to hear how the blog plays a part in her dates. Sometimes guys think they know a lot about her from her blog, when she’s only posted part of the story, and sometimes guys are completely unaware she has a blog. She talked about using her blog as a tool, and I agree it can be a tool, to build up or destroy a relationship.

Ted and I (our first joint appearance!) shared how blogging has strengthened our marriage. When pressed to remember specific quotes from one of us, I think I focussed more on others, hoping to understand and learn from them. (I do remember Ted said something that surprised me – I hadn’t heard it before and I was surprised he said it in public – so I won’t print it here!) But I think we both agreed together that blogging has built our relationship stronger, and afterwards we both agreed it was a great panel.

Go read Jen’s summary of the panel, different from mine, also Maryam’s wrap-up.

Arieanna once again caught some good quotes.

Picture here.

I think this would be an excellent topic to repeat, with other panelists. Amba wrote a post earlier exploring the many aspects of blogs in the bedroom:

There are so many possibilities. Dueling blogs. Linking and funneling traffic to each other. Competition and traffic envy. Sidelong communication and subliminal messages to each other through seemingly straight-ahead blogging. Bloggy voyeurism, bloggy exhibitionism, bloggy snooping, discoveries, revelations, suspicions of that too-friendly commenter. The ruefully familiar phenomenon of the blog widow/widower. “Desperate Blogwives.” What fun.

I read criticism saying (I’m paraphrasing here) the panel was like People magazine, too focussed on celebrities, gossip or personal situations. I thought we covered topics that would affect anyone who blogs and loves. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and presentations, what we put in posts impacts relationships. Although they may have been cloaked in specific posts or circumstances, I think each panelist shared important principles and perspective. This is a topic I’ve longed to cover in a conference session and I think we made a great beginning. Perhaps future panels could cover specific aspects or scenarios,

I’d like to see Anita and Jack, Enoch and Tania, Marc and Lisa, Tom and Dori and others…(Kris and Sarah?!)

And, I have to say, I wonder why Robert wasn’t in the panel? I’d like to see him on it too! After all I think he’d make some sparks…

Bonus link: for more on blogging from the bedroom see the SXSW Interactive panel Bloggers in Love, Sunday March 12 3:30 pm. take a peek…

We crossed the border Thursday night, February 9, and showed up for Moose Camp on Friday morning before Northern Voice on Saturday.. These two days are a bit of a blur for me, I confess, so I’ll mention a few highlights. On Friday I appreciated the opportunity to visit Nancy White’s session at NetSquared North, a nonprofit bootcamp. I also enjoyed the various Photo Camp topics. Although the BBQ at Stanley Park sounded fun, we had concerns about walking back and forth in the cold with kids, and so we went on a Greek adventure instead…

The audio is up!
First a big thank you to Bruce Sharp for posting the audio of my talk “Starting with Fire: Why Stories are Effective and How to Blog Effective Tales“.

Starting with Fire …and starting early!

Saturday started early as I prepared to speak, getting up for one last rehearsal before shower and breakfast. It’s an honor to be asked to speak at a conference, and an honor to be asked to speak first, to be given the opening keynote. It is also humbling to do a keynote, as I learned. I wanted to do my best to get the conference started, to represent and open NV, to keep everyone awake at 8:45 on a Saturday morning, so I put everything I could into preparing the talk. After munching scones in our hotel room, we got up and walked down Robson as a family, admiring the sun rise in the city.. Soon Darren introduced me and it was my turn on the stage.

Stories and challenges

When I proposed “Starting with Fire” to the Northern Voice organizers in November, I wanted to challenge myself and others. I was hoping to inspire bloggers to share and post more stories. And I challenged myself by proposing a talk that crossed disciplines, required research and contained multiple purposes. As Tim Bray noted, this talk was less intense than “Making Masks” and I intentionally wanted a different tone. Sharing stories has been essential to me, and I hoped to encourage others to keep that flame going. I was also eager to share what I had learned and hoping to listen in turn.

As I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation, I was fascinated when I started studying stories and discovered the many reasons why stories are essential, from neuroscience to psychology to culture. I wanted to share what I had learned. I kept the “how” simple, so that stories would seem accessible, not lofty or complex but something anyone can share easily in a post. Yet the topic of storytelling is complex and I look forward to developing these ideas further and watching them grow.

The more I thought about stories, and assembled concepts together, the more I realized that there is more to storytelling than simply telling stories.. We come to storytelling from the history of humanity, as one of many in a circle, needing humility to listen. Stories survive us and stories allow us to survive. But it is only as we listen with humility that we can allow other’s stories, truth, faith, love, to live within us. I want to pursue this.

Mistakes made

I have two regrets, both related to each other. In my original proposal for the talk, I had wanted to use a third of the time for conversation and interaction. However, as I practiced, the presentation was still coming together, evolving with each version, and often lasted close to 40 minutes. Instead I was surprised when the clock on my display said I had only taken 31 minutes or so on the stage. I should have asked if we had time for questions. I regret that I didn’t.

I also regret that I didn’t practice my talk thoroughly with the dual-display mode. In Keynote, the only way to see what will be seen when I present, is to plug the laptop into another monitor. This means hijacking Ted’s computer, which I should have done instead of relying on memory. I had forgotten that. Keynote also reduces the space for notes when put into double display mode (why doesn’t the program let you know this ahead of time?!) So when I encountered some of my slides on stage, I suddenly realized I lost some of my lengthier notes. The first couple times I improvised, but for my penultimate paragraph, I wanted those notes, those specific words, and paused to try to see if I could get them. It was awkward and I apologize. I would appreciate more opportunities to practice speaking somehow (Darren, did you join Toastmasters?!)

Learning and responding

As I am beginning to learn about both storytelling and giving presentations, I’m grateful for community and conferences that provide me with encouragment, inspiration and opportunity. Thank you to everyone at Northern Voice for letting me speak. Thanks for listening and responding.

Nancy White commented that I should share the dark side of stories. I’ll think more about that one...Beth Grigg disagreed with me about voice. David Drucker was disturbed by the partial picture I painted, when I told a tale from my childhood of the power of stories. I’m sorry.. I had hoped the story could stand on its own as a snapshot and illustration and I did not intend to disturb anyone. (update: David responded to my comment with clarification on his blog.) Alan Levine thought I didn’t spend enough time on the “how” of blogging stories. From my clock I know I spent 20 of my 30 minutes on the “how” but I could improve. Perhaps by adding more examples. Or turning the talk into a conversation where we share with each other. I am thinking of trying a conversational version of “Starting with Fire” at the next opportunity I have, perhaps Seattle Mind Camp in May.

More from others…look in this Technorati search…also
Arieanna, Tris and Mack caught some of my phrases. Nancy White’s notes seem fairly thorough.

Neil Jensen started sharing his own family stories. Backspace was nice. Ponzi mentioned the call for “encore” (I though iti was just Ponzi yelling encore – she’s such a fan and friend!:-)).

My favorite picture of my presentation is probably Kris Krug’s but I also liked Tim Bray’s angle. Thanks to everyone for the pictures in the northernvoice Flickr tag.

My research and resources are listed here:http://del.icio.us/julie_leung/storytelling

The Seven Competencies of Online Interaction

Another highlight was Nancy White’s excellent Seven Competencies of Online Interaction. I dashed into her session, abandoning Ted and kids, when I saw her first slide with the word “storyteller”. Nancy influenced my thoughts as I was writing my talk, through email dialogue and her blog posts, and I enjoyed learning from her in-person presentation.

The Place of Face to Face

In the NetSquared session I attended as well as the last session on Five Ways Your Blog Can Change the World, the role of face to face interactions versus online was discussed. Nancy pointed out in her session that some people, such as HIV workers around the world whose organizations will never send them to conferences or Armenians who spend five months of the year unable to leave their village due to snow, will only have online community as an option. I think Robert Scoble hits it well when he wrote that community comes from hanging out together. Sometimes people wonder why go to a blogging conference, but at a blogging conference you will make connections that don’t happen any other way. There’s something about being in the same time and space as someone else that pulls you together. Perhaps you sit or park next to each other, eat lunch, grab a cup of coffee and bump into each other, stumble into their talk. Sure, we can find rich connections online. But blogging conferences prove that there’s no replacement for face-to-face.

Mommy and Daddy Blogger bonding

Those of us in the kid room created our own community, simply because we were all there together, with common purpose and goal (survival as parents!). It was fun to see Eric Soroos and Rose and Ben again after literally years. Also Beth Grigg and her clan, Lauren Wood and Tim Bray. We hung out with Anita Rowland, whose wisdom and patience with kids inspires me. And Darren wrote some kind words about our kids.

I like the community created by Northern Voice and wish we could continue it throughout the year in person. Perhaps we could get together for a Photo Camp or Photo Walk in either Seattle or Vancouver (before or after Gnomedex?) Perhaps a bbq, in honor of Lee and Sachi LeFever?!

‘Cause I’ve got a story to tell!

After our great weekend at Moose Camp and Northern Voice, we decided to stop at the Vancouver Aquarium on the way home, a tradition we started last year after the first Northern Voice. The kids deserved a day of fun for them since they had put up with two days of rather-grown-up blogging conferences. Taking the time for family and photography would help us relax and savor the short vacation before heading back into reality.

Surprise in the Stanley Park parking lot

Three hours later, ready to hit the road, I looked in the van and saw the glove compartment open. With a strange sensation of both horror and numbness, we knew the laptops were gone before we looked for them. The thieves knew what they were doing, and knew what they were taking They were not starving: Coca-Cola and wine were left behind. No, they wanted our valuables, the unzipped suitcase proving their priorities.

At first I was calm. Worse things have happened to me. Worse things could have happened. I wanted to do damage control for the kids (since I’ve failed at that in the past) and pay attention to them while Ted focussed on the loss and made a list for the police. It was a larger loss for him since he lives more online than I do. I felt I could forgive the thieves.We were okay., Not great, but okay.

But in the past few days I’ve been surprised at the emotional reaction within me. First I wanted to tell someone. Anyone. However we had forgotten to charge our cell phones – and now the chargers were gone with the thieves. I had to wait until we came home hours later and I typed out a few emails to share the news.

Looking in the mirror and living what I learned about storytelling

Ironically, I spent weeks studying the power of storytelling as I prepared for my presentation at Northern Voice. Yet I don’t know why I have an urge to tell people our computers were stolen. I realized that not only did I want to tell people, but also I was seeking a certain response to my story to satisfy something within me. Perhaps I am putting the pieces together as I talk. Perhaps I am finding power in the powerlessness. Perhaps it is the way I am grieving this loss. Perhaps, in the break of trust we feel, I am searching for community, searching for a sense of empathy and understanding, searching for someone who will show me the world is okay again.

vowing to be no longer a lurker

Nancy White in her excellent presentation on Saturday (see video here) said that lurkers were the greatest potential powerful force – or something like that (of course, my notes are gone now). At the time I felt convicted, realizing that I need to take more time to comment on posts. I think aggregator reading dissuades me from commenting (too much work to click in and out from the feed, plus my aggregator didn’t allow me to comment on some systems) and I also am trying to do too much with the time I have, rushing when I read.

But I am suddenly seeing the power of response, the power of lurkers, so to speak. Is it that I want my experience validated? I crave conversation. I want to know I am not alone. This is the largest tangible loss I have experienced during my blogging days, the largest loss that I can describe explicitly in this public space and probably the most black and white. It is easy to see that we were wronged. Even if we were stupid to leave our laptops in our van, someone else still took our valuables out of our locked vehicle.

Isolation

The loss of my laptop and the crime itself have isolated me and cut me off from communication and community. I was angry yesterday morning that I had to spend a day driving to the dealer (an hour from our house) to have the van evaluated and repaired. The kids and I had other plans we had to cancel, plans with our homeschooling group, some of our best friends. I was mad that I – and my three kids – had to pay the price for someone else’s actions with both time and money..and further isolate ourselves.

More than that, of course, without a computer, I can’t send email or blog. We have an old ThinkPad that Ted helped resuscitate since Sunday. I can’t watch videos, as I discovered last night when it crashed. But for the moment it works for email and blogging (note: the ThinkPad is being rebuilt as I finish this post). Although we bought software this fall so we could watch tv on our PowerBooks in time for Turin, we will be missing this Olympics, another loss for our figure-skating-fan-family. We are waiting to work out details with the insurance. And waiting for the next generation of Macs to become available. I may be limping online for a little while perhaps until April.

Even my camera is affected. The cable for downloading pictures was in my laptop bag. And the kids and I fillled up the memory card while we were in the Aquarium. I had imagined coming home and trying to make more videos. The kids wanted to post pictures. Now I’ll be happy if we can figure out a way to get the images off of the camera sometime. Photography too is a way to express myself, a way that has been cut off by the crime.

Counting our losses

The losses are tangible, large and sentimental. The poster Nancy White made with the girls during the Blogs in the Bedroom session was taken too. I wonder what the thief thought of that! At least I uploaded some photos to Flickr before we left the hotel. I lost photographs. I lost my entire “Starting with Fire” talk. I had a backup copy of my presentation, but it was in Ted’s bag. I still have a stack of printed papers I used when compiling my notes, a stack I had planned to toss when returning from the weekend, but now will keep. So the talk I gave on Saturday was exclusively for Northern Voice! Thanks to Nancy’s detailed notes and othersn(I’ll list more links later) I’m sure I could put it back together if I wanted to do so. I also lost my remote for presentations, two DVDs I brought to amuse the kids, a copy of The Cat in the Hat and a book of letters written by Jim Elliot (that should give me pause).

But I think I am more disturbed by the emotional impact. I miss the first computer that was truly mine. I liked that laptop! I’m missing my pictures and notes. I’m missing the Mac software I had figured out how to use, now that I’m back to an old Windows machine. I’m surprised by my sorrow.

Losing my religion of locks …and control

I’m overwhelmed by the work. I’m surprised at the amount of energy it has taken me to write this blogpost.I had a good cry on the drive home, after we crossed the border. At night I fall asleep early, too tired to do what I need to do to keep the household going, clutter accumulating on my desk and in the corners of the countertop. There’s a feeling of depression perhaps and certainly futility. My faith has been broken, not my faith in people as much as my faith in locks. Mitch Ratcliffe wrote a post on locks at the end of last year when he installed the first lock on his home titled How I got a key to my house after five years, and I drafted a post in response, describing how I had grown up believing in locks (yes, I also lost all my drafts of posts – another reason to publish rather than polish!). Locks were like religion to me. We believe in deadbolts. At every home Ted and I have had together, we’ve been meticulous about locks. The last thing I do at night is check the doors. I constantly lock the car. Even though I live on an island with a low crime rate, where many still leave doors and cars open. Yet not even a lock protects us from harm. Certainly I don’t like knowing strangers have rummaged through my underwear but I like less the reminder that I can’t control what happens to us.

I need normalcy to return. Yet I know things will never be what they were.

Failing at forgiveness

I’m realizing I am lousy at forgiveness. I’ve felt that I have learned to forgive others in my life. In particular I like to think I’ve been able to go forward from a painful childhood and build my own family in better ways. But I am seeing how hard it is to forgive someone when you have to live with the damage every day. I’m wondering whether I know how to forgive at all. Maybe I’m only able to forgive when the situation improves and I can forget about the loss. Wow. Losing my laptop affected my lifestyle, my community, my mental and emotional wellbeing. It was one thing to sit on the curb outside the Aquarium while waiting for the Mounties to arrive and think I could forgive the thieves. I’m finding it is another thing to return home and constantly change my routines because of someone else’s choices and crimes. Even as I write this post, I am always aware of what was stolen, as I try to hack in html instead of my WSIWYG ecto editor I enjoyed. Forgiveness is indeed divine, something beyond my own abilities and limits. I can only imagine how those with larger losses in life try to cope. I think I am finding more sensitivity and insight for others in painful situations, seeing into the stories around me.

Bad Things Happen

And Good Things Happen with Bad Things. I’ve been amazed by Ted’s response to the situation, his kindness and calm demeanor, despite the fact that a stolen computer might be near the top of his list of nightmares.He never once blamed me, although I blamed myself, since I was the one who locked the car (I am now quite certain, based on evidence, that I did lock it). Even now he is sharing his Linux box with me as the rehabilitated ThinkPad crashed this morning and needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up, more work for my thoughtful husband and technologist who wants me to maintain my online life somehow in the midst of this loss.As I wrote on his Valentines card yesterday I love him more.

This incident has also been a good opportunity. for uis to talk to the kids. Abigail reacted “I didn’t think something like this would happen to us.” I remember being her age and feeling the same way – only when my parents divorced. Bad Things always happened to other people. There must be something that happens around age seven or eight when you begin to realize that the world is not safe, a loss of innocence perhaps, a gain in awareness of reality and the ugliness of life. Even Elisabeth, our three year old, felt compelled to tell her swimming teacher about the theft in her preschool babble. Living on Bainbridge Island and in our home, our kids probably inhabit a relatively safe world, one that was rocked by an opportunist on Sunday in Stanley Park.

Ted and I have taken this opportunity to let the kids know that Bad Things Happen. Conversations have included topics from Nancy Kerrigan’s knee (it fit well with Michelle Kwan’s swan song and the OLympics) to child abductors to stories of stealing from each of our own childhoods and one particularly animated tale from our early married life involving earrings and a chase scene. We read the Bible as a family, and even if one disregards any spiritual value to the tales in that book, from the beginning the stories reveal how people do Bad Things to each other. So on the one hand, crime should not be a surprise. Yet it’s another thing to tell your kids how awful humans can be to each other, and to have them get a glimpse of it with their wide trusting eyes.

the story behind the stealing

One highlight of the experience was meeting the Vancouver Police Mounted Squad. The horses cheered up the kids, and the police had stickers to distribute too. The officers said that the theft rate is due to the drug problem in the city. They suspected our computers were probably stolen by someone who needed cash to get a hit or get high.

More than once I’ve wondered about the person or people who took our laptops. “Stories make us merciful,” I said on Saturday from the stage. I imagine the story behind the stealing. I don’t know what it is. I’ll probably never know. We don’t expect to see those laptops again or find out who took them. But I want a story to make me merciful. I want a story to help me be compassionate. I want a story to help me forgive and forget…and go forward.

Yesterday after making a stack of sandwiches for lunch and wrestling with emotions of frustration and anger, we headed to the mechanic, prepared to spend the day sitting in the lounge. I was pleasantly surprised when the dealership fixed our car for less than expected. On the way home, I stopped at a park and let the girls get exercise. As the three became a blur of purple and pink against the green, bouncing across the grass in the sunshine, I think I felt their freedom. I think I felt forgiveness.

how to help

Here’s a way to help me: Please leave your blog url in the comments below to help me rebuild my list of aggregator feeds. .I also lost the list of blogs I read! If you don’t want to leave it publicly, please send it to harrowme AT yahoo.com. Thanks. And thanks to all of you who responded so kindly to my anniversary post (I’ll use that list of links too) and to Ted’s post.

Thank you for listening!

SYLLABICATION: re·li·gion
PRONUNCIATION: r-ljn

During the time for questions and discussion at the end of my Northern Voice talk, someone shared a detailed observation, describing blogging as a religion. The clock was ticking, we were ending my session and I didn’t know how to succinctly and quickly respond to this complicated statement. Since then, I have heard and seen others repeating this comparison of blogging and religion.

I agree that blogging could be seen as a religion: it depends on the definition of religion. If religion is defined as adherence to a set of rituals, then perhaps my daily routine of publishing posts and reading feeds would fit. If religion is defined as an identifying lifestyle practice, such as the fact that I now carry my camera with me everywhere, then blogging might be considered a religion. If religion brings people together and creates community, certainly meetups and conferences could be classified as religious experiences in that sense. We bloggers may share common values including the often-cited ones of transparency, authenticity and truth. And, as the conference attendee pointed out to me, we are perhaps indoctrinating our children into blogging by starting them at an early age.

However here are some key questions that demonstrate how blogging fails to fulfill my definition – and the dictionary’s definition – of religion:

Does blogging provide a purpose for my life or explain my existence on Earth?
No.

Does blogging involve a belief in supernatural beings or require reverence for any gods?
No.

Does blogging explain what happens when I die or where I was before birth?
No.

Does blogging interpret humanity, community and current events into a holistic picture?
No.

Does blogging fulfill spiritual needs for my family and me?
No.

Blogging is a container. It’s a tool. it can be a way to share and express religion. But blogging is not a purpose in itself. Bloggers might be zealous. Bloggers might be devoted. However I hope we all find more purpose to life than the act of publishing posts.

As Derek Miller observed, there are a number of activities that could be described as religion, with the same qualifications as blogging. Some families raise their children playing tennis. Some families raise their children immersed in art or business. And some families are devoted to NASCAR. There are plenty of these types of indoctrinations.

I don’t like the word religion. I feel it has come to mean a pile of routines and rituals, a list of laws lacking love, hypocrites who hurt others. I don’t describe myself as religious.

Here is a better question:

Is blogging spiritual?

If a blog is a container, then a blog can be spiritual. A blog can be filled with whatever we want to put inside it. I believe the best posts are those that connect us to each other on the deep levels of who we are as humans, what we feel, how we hurt, whom we love. In a face to face conversation we might talk about traffic, cars or coffee. We may or may not dive into the depths. We often hide our souls.

But a blog gives us a voice for these secret sides of our selves, the tender places, the fears and faults, the dreams and desires, the likes and loves. We can show our scars and wash our wounds. We can describe our doubts. We can be desperate. We can be excited. We ask. We give. We rejoice. We sing. We dance. We listen.

We share life. We share death. We share love.

We can become more of who we were meant to be, both as individuals and community. Blogging can remind us who we are and what it’s all about.

A blog is a bowl and we can pour pieces of our souls into it, as an offering to others, for whomever will hear.

Spiritual blogging doesn’t require rituals or routines: indoctrination makes it dull. But blogging of the soul does ask for devotion, zeal and courage.

Correct yourself was one of Tim Bray’s points in his talk last weekend at Northern Voice ( live notes). Acknowledging mistakes is part of our humanity, a part, that, as Tim Bray pointed out, often doesn’t exist in other media or publications. I was glad to see his point and now I have a few corrections to post…

While describing those who played with our kids, I should have mentioned Travis Smith and Susannah Gardner. They both cuddled and entertained our daughters during the post-conference party. Susannah shared the personal blogging panel with me, and I’d read her writings before the conference. Travis’ blog I discovered this week. His column on Appropriate Holiday Feelings fits well with my emotional life themes. I wonder what is the appropriate feeling for correcting oneself?

Now I need to try another of Tim’s suggestions…flame judiciously… which may lead to more correction posts…

A general blog note: Due to excessive spam, I have had to turn off trackbacks. I am trying to respond to comments as I can but I may not be able to participate in the conversation as soon or as often as I would like.

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]]> http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1714/feed 0 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1705 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1705#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:50:03 +0000 jjl http://www.julieleung.com/wordpress/?p=1705 Ilona’s enthusiastic response to the reports of my talk at Northern Voice – Better Than If It Were Mine illustrated exactly what I was describing: how our lives are interwoven through weblogs. thanks Ilona for your care! And I agree that Ted is romantic!

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]]> http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1705/feed 0 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1708 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1708#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:46:44 +0000 jjl http://www.julieleung.com/wordpress/?p=1708 Update 2/26/05: I’ve been informed through a comment and private email from Preetam Rai that the incident below was a joke and did not occur at the Northern Voice Conference. However, I will still leave this post, since I think that my point should be made. Some parents would try the idea below.

Also please see the comments for other intriguing questions and aspects of this issue.

end of update

From a post titled Blogging and the family: Northern Voice Blogging Conference by preetam rai:

One attendee in one of our “Introduction to Blog” session suspected that her teenage daughter had a anon. blog. She was wondering if there was a way she could find the blog. We suggested that she surprise the daughter with a gift. Later in the night she could locate the daughter’s blog by running a web search with keywords like “Wow!! my mother bought me a gift”.

I wasn’t present in the Introduction to Blogging session and I was upset after reading this post corrective note – this did not occur at the conference. If the teenage daughter does indeed have a blog, she may have reasons why she doesn’t want to disclose this to her mother. Perhaps she doesn’t trust her parents with the sides of herself she is sharing online. Giving the daughter a gift, a bizarre sort of bribe, to use as a tool to discover her secret identity will only break whatever trust is left in the relationship. Especially now that this snippet of the session has been published (what if the daughter is reading Northern Voice posts to discover what her parents are doing?!) From my limited perspective, the best thing the parents can do in this situation is try to build trust with their daughter: trust, I believe, is what blogging (and life!) is about and trust is what allows secrets to be shared.

Please don’t try this at home.

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]]> http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1708/feed 6 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1697 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1697#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:26:04 +0000 jjl http://www.julieleung.com/wordpress/?p=1697

The girls had a great time hanging out at Northern Voice. Thanks to everyone for being kind and understanding with our kids. For example, Darren Barefoot and his blog widow amused them with pictures of Cuba. I was glad that my daughters didn’t poke out Chris Pirillo’s eyes with chopsticks over lunch, or that they didn’t make him spout soda through his nose, as he described. Robert Scoble was sweet to his youngest fan club members and the rest of our lunch companions, including Maryam and Ponzi were thoughtful too. At dinner the kids were excited to discover that Roland Tanglao and Boris Mann also sprechen Deutsch…and Marc demonstrated how to sing in German, Mozart, I believe. At one point Ted and I thought Boris was about to jumpstart his family with some of our own; he seemed comfortable with kids. Our daughters are still talking about their dim sum playdate time with Mimi and Lucy, Lisa and Marc Canter’s daughters. I let our girls run around with a camera and take pictures. The girls posted some of their photos to their blog and I added a few to the Northern Voice flickr feed to share…In the future, I’d expect to see more and more younger attendees at blogging conferences. Thanks to the Northern Voice crew for letting our kids share it with us.

After we came home, the girls began interviewing each other, using a Dalmatian dog tail (think big black pom pom) as a microphone. They’ve also started writing stories, including a description of our trip to Canada. I don’t know if my own creativity has inspired them but perhaps seeing examples has given them ideas of their own to try…

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]]> http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1697/feed 1 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1699 http://www.julieleung.com/archives/1699#comments Tue, 22 Feb 2005 15:51:54 +0000 jjl http://www.julieleung.com/wordpress/?p=1699 The combination of participating as a speaker and attending as a family made the experience of Northern Voice a different blogging conference for me. I took few notes and skipped a couple sessions. Usually I create detailed transcripts in blogposts and immerse myself in the talks, but this time I had other considerations.

It was fun to share it all with my family and make new friendships. While bringing the kids changed the dynamics and schedule possibilities, it also helped us connect to others too: what a place to find new playmates! The girls were able to see Mommy speak at a conference. Having Ted there with me was infinitely better than trying to describe it over the phone to him.

I was able to listen to Tim Bray and Robert Scoble’s keynote talks. I appreciated Tim’s emphasis on humility and correcting oneself, while at the same time he encouraged bloggers to flame judiciously and express themselves with color and authentic tone. His soup analogy(and picture) caught our daughters’ attention, and so did his humming method of voting. I could relate to can’t not write as a reason to blog…

Robert in his talk revealed how he is noticing and aggregating trends as he reads blogs. I think the proverb that comes to mind is ear to the ground. Listening. Although he does use PubSub for search feeds, for example to read about the phuket tsunami, he said that such feeds were purified sugar, not nutritious or sustaining. I like that he wants to read blog feeds in order to build relationships: he’s into people not just information.

My own talk was an intense and rich experience. Thanks to the Northern Voice organizers, I felt I had freedom to be creative with my time. In a previous post I described how I crafted the talk, immersing myself, and it felt as if I were throwing a pot on the wheel. Stories from my life combined with pictures from my blog and quotes from other bloggers. I also felt relaxed and comfortable as if I were speaking to friends (I was!). Getting the talk started took a little effort and nerves, but soon I felt more myself than I had when I practiced for Ted Thursday night. Perhaps this sense of casual conversation made my talk less polished and blurry than ideal. Also, like a new pair of jeans, I suspect that a presentation fits better the more times it is “worn”. This opportunity at Northern Voice was a new pair of jeans, a new outfit for me, figuratively, a gift, and I’m grateful I was chosen to be a speaker.

After I finished my slides, we began a discussion. Many hands went up in the room to participate. I enjoyed hearing stories, observations and insights: I wish we had had more time to share with each other. Again, if anyone would like to continue the conversation please link or email me.

At this point, I don’t think I will post notes from my talk. Since my presentation involved both slides and speech, it would be difficult to share it unless I made a webcast or film. There is the possibility I may give this talk again, so I would prefer to preserve some intrigue.

Most of all though, I don’t have to post notes because others have already done excellent work: thanks!. Please see posts from: