AKMA comments on hearing David Weinberger in person, (David’s entry into his blogging of the conference here, and his talk from the Conference’s pages) . AKMA’s comments ring a bell, since I went and listened to both of them (AKMA and David) present at Vanderbilt on Weblogs and education. I was one there who fit AKMA’s description of ‘had no partiuclar reason to learn more about weblogs” — I think that we do it becuase there’s always a reason to learn something different about weblogs, or think about another slant in why to use weblogs, or where to use weblogs, or how to use weblogs, and also AKMA’s point: it’s always a treat to hear David. It was also an occasion to re-read Samll Pieces, and I have a few things to blog about that as I am still jotting down “BLog Notes” (the notes I make to myself when reading a book to remind myself to “blog that”) In the case of Vanderbilt, it was definitely interesting as well to hear David and AKMA in the context of higher education and hear the usual elitist paranoia about how weblogs “cheapen” the idea of the expert. One comment was a very generalized “I don’ think the Web is good at all” and proceeded to make all the usual complaints about smut and disinformation and how Weblogs expose us to a lot of unuseful musings. David’s reply was exactly what I was thinking and usually include in my reply to such: “Is the world a good place?”

MY point in relaying and recounting that experience is that it is great to hear some of these “Weblog friends and mentors” in person, but also to catch their presentations in different contexts. It’s almost like a religious ritual, where we all get together and celebrate the Weblog and the Web and the idea of conversations happening where they never could before. And do it over and over again, as a constant recounting and observance, and we seek to “convert” the doubters and the seekers by inviting them to join the conversation, even if they want to do it to trash the whole idea in public.

The quote from AKMA’s weblog:
Well, this makes the third or fourth formal occasion on which I’ve heard David Weinberger talk about weblogs, and I think (if he’s sick or indisposed, or double-commits himself) I’m getting the presentation down well enough to sub for him. But that catch is, he’s great, and the point of these presentations isn’t simply to find out something about weblogs — I mean, there were a bunch of people at the talk who have no particular reason to learn more about weblogs — but to listen to David, who is not only an ambassador from the tech world to the civilian establishment, but is also a magnificently gifted communicator