Alan Gutierrez

I’ve been in New Orleans long enough that blogging is only a wee bit of fun.

These days, it boils down to spending more time in front of the computer. Not good.

It’s too nice outside.

It’d be nice to get some information out there, though. I’m conviced that blogging is a good way to do it.

It once was the case that I’d blog to converse. That was a colder climate.

Here are conversations aplenty just over the courtyard walls. High-bandwidth conversations, with eye contact, hand waving, and table pouding. Pure entertainment.

Human contact spoils you for the keyboard and CRT.

Much of the online conversation now seems dreadfully dull and self-referential. It’s a lot of conversation about a handful of industries, namely, software, media, and marketing.

I make the case for blogging as publishing, but not for conversation.

It’s hard to explain the value of blogging if you show a person the echoing non-sense of the A-List. It’s self-referential, and mostly meaningless.

I don’t show my neighbors the blogs that feature incessant articles about gadgets, networks, or copyrights.

I don’t show my neighbors the national political blogs, with their angry open threads. The polar politics that so closely mirrors the cable news cycle is both dull and horrifying. These are the rantings that people expect when they think online diary.

Rather, I show my neighbors something that is civic and human.

I show them Ann Arbor.

I show and tell recent articles, from Ann Arbor bloggers, exemplary of their authors.

You’ll here me tell of such bloggers as
Ann Arbor Is Overrated a look askance at the city’s culture, Ypsi~Dixit who tells tales of public transportation, Arbor Update with it’s scrutiny of city development, Superpatron Vielmetti’s writing on his work with the Ann Arbor Public Library, Larry Kestenbaum vinettes about Washtenaw County officaldom, and my friend Dave who writes about beer.

These are civic bloggers, with civic agendas.

They have blogrolls that link to the blogging citizens of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. Their blogrolls represent a network of friends and fellow citizens.

It is a challenge to get people in New Orleans to leave the anonymity of email, and move towards a more transparent way of organizing.

It is much easier to get folks to transition, when they see that the message does not travel that much futher.

Blogging is not broadcasting. Blogging is not journalism.

Blogging is not a about being naked, it’s about being transparent and inclusive.

Blogging is perfecly civic.