SIGGRAPH (computer graphics) was my original academic community. I first attended the conference as a student volunteer in 1997 and have attended most years since, always with a role ranging from speaker to party press. (Yes, i managed a legitimate pass once to cover the party circuit… it was the web era.)

Last month, i got CCed on a conversation about social software and SIGGRAPH. Not surprisingly, i opened my big mouth and shouted off my opinions. Of course, as with all academic communities, the moment you start giving suggestions, you’re told to just implement it. So i did. And it’s official. SIGGRAPH is using social software and the links are live on their main page.

* SIGGRAPH 2004 BLOG

* SIGGRAPH 2004 WIKI

I will be blogging live from SIGGRAPH (and hopefully moblogging). This is a fantastic moment of blending my current life with my past life. I’m ecstatic.

[Oh, and if you’re planning on attending, add yourself to the list of attendees at the Wiki.]

It’s August. This is the month when i start to twitch and my body feels the emergence of a new year. New Year’s Eve was never my “new year” because it’s smack in the middle of school and there’s nothing new about it… maybe that’s because i never finished my finals before NYE. Most years, August would mean a long journey, the closing of my summer project and a long drive across country back to school. Sometimes, this was punctuated with a visit to Black Rock City.

One thing always happens as a new year emerges – the desire to clean. Usually, i’m moving in August. Aside from last year (where i moved in July), this is the first year since ?1992? where i’m not moving in August (in HS, i was either moving homes or moving back from summer camp). Spring cleaning never happens, but moving usually requires cleaning. The problem is that i despise cleaning. Yet, the urge is there. Last night, i walked into my room, cringed and decided to clean some digital bits instead. Of course, one thing about cleaning (physical or digital) is that it means a walk down memory lane.

I’ve had over 12 online journals, diaries, blogs since 1996. They’re really scattered. I’ve decided that it’s time to bring some of them together. I’ve been asking people how their blogging voice evolved, but scouring my own journals was a real wake-up call. I’ve imported a mere fraction of my entries so far, but it’s so startling to hear the different things that i wrote over the years. I wrote about books, i wrote observations from the streets, i wrote about my depression and ongoing health crises. Most of what i wrote was personal. These were, after all, my diaries and journals.

Some of it is outright eerie. I didn’t address 9/11 in writing for various reasons. I had forgotten that i went to visit the mental health clinic on 9/10 because i was dealing with a bout of depression. That day, i wrote:

there’s something inherently wrong about having bitchy, impatient, mean administrators working in the front desk of a mental health department. hrmpft.

I have to wonder about their attitude the next day.

In an attempt to recognize my past, i decided to import almost everything, regardless of my own horrors and embarrassment about the mundane or foolish. Yes, this is a collapsing of contexts and it gives me the shudders. But i kept thinking about a conversation i had with a friend last December. He kept telling me about the importance of these historical artifacts, about how they allow for reflection, both from the writer and the reader. I’ve decided to own my ups and downs and include those entries for posterity, to remind me of where i came from. ::gulp::

Xeni interviews a bunch of “unrepentant compulsive digital networkers” (including moi) for her latest article: Online social networks go to work – Where personal connections lead to professional allies. It’s a fun candid read.

Dan Bricklin’s What we learn from the Convention blogging is a fantastic write-up about lessons learned. It is also exceptionally applicable to event blogging in general.

Of course, it makes me gulp a little as i’m gearing up to blog SIGGRAPH. Of course, SIGGRAPH is always exhausting anyhow and i’ve done the party circuit in costume there before.

Why is it that the only bloggers at the DNC are sympathetic to the Democratic party? What about other DNC attendees (other than protesters) – are they all sympathetic? Do non-sympathetic press cover the DNC?

It strikes me as odd that everything i’ve heard back from people at the DNC is from people who really believe in the Democratic party or people who are paid to not express their personal opinion. I realize that the bloggers with credentials are probably pawns of the DNC who want to employ them to get the word out further. But i want to hear rational critical voices… i want to hear what thinking Republicans think about the DNC.

I also had a realization this morning that i want to attend the RNC. I am not a good protester – i tend to get pretty upset with the type of herd mentality that emerges in those situations, even when i believe the values of the protest at my very core. So i figured that i wouldn’t go to New York next month. But what i realized is that i really want to be at the RNC, inside the RNC.

I want to talk to reporters about how their job works, how they perceive the bloggers. I want to talk to the passionate attendees about how they manage political information, about how they employ technology to share knowledge. More than anything, i want to be surrounded by thousands of people whose values and approaches to the world are fundamentally different than mine. It’s so humbling and eye-opening to talk directly to people who disagree with me, not to argue but to understand… to see the world from their perspective.

I think San Francisco is getting to me.

But seriously, i wonder if there’s any way that i’d be able to get into the RNC in New York. I wouldn’t want to go to attack or protest, but to understand. I think it could be quite humbling to see the world from a different perspective for a few days. And goddess only knows that it’d be far more mind-expanding than spending those days in the Black Rock Desert.

Obviously, I can’t speak for the delegates, protestors, service providers, real journalists or even for other bloggers, but for me it’s a lot like going to a sports arena and watching a sport that consists of talking loud. — David Weinberger

ROFL. I love David.

OK… i may have succumbed. I’m going to be blogging SIGGRAPH and i really want a camera phone so that i can auto-Flickr-Blog. I mean, i could do it via a digital camera, but when i realized that i could email pictures to Flickr and it would automatically blog it, i was in heaven. This is the only way that i’m likely to photoblog and i know it. Specific purpose, target audience.

So, this means that i need to accept that i will purchase a camera phone. Crazy, eh? But the fact is that i know little about camera phones. I want one with a high enough quality that it will be reasonable for blogging. I don’t want a PDA device. I’m currently on Sprint. I’m always half tempted to switch, but i never do it… at least not in the last 7.5 years. Probably, i’d want a Sprint phone… and preferably one that didn’t cost a fortune.

One alternate option would be to buy the camera for my sidekick – anyone know anything about that?

Anyhow… i’d love thoughts and suggestions. If i’ve learned anything about gadgetry, it’s that everyone has an opinion.

Oh baby, they did. They really did. On Main and Folsom.

[Appropriately, Jen ROFLed.]

I’m not good at being ill. After much internal struggle and because of my confidence in Christopher Allen, i responsibly stayed at home last night; Christopher took my place at the CMU event. This morning, though, i operated via danah logic… that’s the kind of bass-ackwards logic that gets me into trouble. I figured that i needed to go to the doctor, the doctor was in Berkeley, BlogOn was in Berkeley… If i went to BlogOn, i would definitely go to the doctor. If i didn’t go, i probably wouldn’t visit the doctor. I knew that i needed to visit the doctor, so obviously it made complete sense to give my talk at BlogOn, right? Besides, i was no longer contagious so why the hell not?

In many ways, i’m glad i went. I had fun sharing my reflections on the linguistic connotations of my blog panel title – the dark side. I told the audience that i had asked people what came to mind when they heard the term ‘the dark side.’ Everyone kept saying Darth Vader… Star Wars… evil. I was annoyed. I was being asked to talk about people and their practices – is that really the evil side of social media? Conference organizers told me i was being pessimistic. Another conceptualization of the dark side kept coming up – Pink Floyd. When you think about the dark side of the moon, you think about the side upon which the sun has yet to shine. Perhaps my role at BlogOn was to share the perspective that people and their practices have yet to be considered. This was my way of providing optimism. I don’t know if anyone got anything out of the panel, but it was interesting to me.

The sad part was that i didn’t really get to stick around for BlogOn. Immediately after my panel, i went to the doc’s because i was having a really hard time breathing. There, i got to breathe foul tasting stuff for 5 minutes and that opened up my lungs – thank goodness. The doctor was nice (for once), although it was a bit eerie to realize that he was my age and looked like a friend of mine. I love doctors at universities because they draw pictures and explain what’s going on. Of course, i found myself wondering if this doctor blogged his experiences at the urgent care like the guy who writes Gross Anatomy. 2 hours of BlogOn did seep in.

I received 6 emails for not blogging recently. Bleh.

My lesson of the week is that strep throat + bronchitis is a deadly combination and definitely requires a doctor visit. I am sick, in bed and sweating profusely. The only creative thoughts that have emerged from my head involve figuring out how to get food without fainting. This is not a recordable experience.

Instead, let me share with you the events that i would’ve attended if i were healthy so that you may attend without me since they all involve good people:

– CMU West Speaker Series: The New Phenomenon of “Enabled Social Networks:” Social, Commercial, and Political/Civic Implications
– BlogOn 2004 – The Business of Social Media
– Ripple Effect’s Connect For (fundraiser for disadvantaged youth and Village Reach)
– Monkey vs. Robot party at Cellspace

Enjoy and perhaps i will have more interesting things to say shortly.