Blogging Session at GCC for ICC

I am currently in the blogging session at ICC! Some of the guys that I read daily are teaching this session! I will list the guy and girl that are teaching in a future post!
They will post the outline of their session on their blogs! I am so excited!

PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR THIS BEING RAW DATA! (UN-EDITED)

Daryl -
Why read blogs? Sharing information, communicating on a personal level! The power behind the blog is better than having a personal website! Personal - Things you are interested in and hobbies! Professional - work related, things you use in your trade! Family- things about your personal family life! You can mix it up with blending two or more!
RSS - built off XML - Really Simple Synidcation. Sending out of xml feeds. Your are developing a page that sends out the feed! You have to bookmark a website. With RSS you can put out the feed and the feedreaders pull the feed to multiple blogs. You can also use RSS in the website world! It brings it to your fingertips.
Why start a blog? It just opens up avenues to sent our information. Blogging is made easy! You can connect and express! It can be a creative outlet for you!
There is a educational aspect of blogging! You can help other people learn how to blog!
The business side opens you up to commenting on your site. It gives you the ability to get feedback! It helps generate conversation! Progmatic reason - get a lot of feed back for what you we do or how we do what we do! It is a great way to capture information and get feedback!

Jason Powell - first thing he dropped the microphone! The sound guy in me had a gut crunch! Jason introduces bloglines to the audience! Tools for new post - bloglines. bloglines.com it is free. Jason shares how to create a bloglines account. Bloglines allows you to check multiple blogs. It gives you the ability to check blogs without having to go to the actual blog! You can save post, or earmark a post! How to subscribe to a blog? go to the blog and click the one click subscription on the blog! Gives you options to click through and save. Go to your bloglines, you should have the feed. Bloglines is one of the most used feed. To subsribe to a blog that doesnt have a feed link, go to site, copy url and go into your bloglines account and add new via url. To edit is easy! Jason is pretty good at kissing up to his boss, Tony Morgan. Firefox users - allows you to add to the folder list! Newsgator is another feed reader. Some blogs have a subscribe me link. It is done by feedblitz. If you are an avid blogger you should really use this feature so that non blog readers can get the feed into your email. Outlook 2007 has a feedreader in the feature. Also IE 7! Blogger is a free blog creating tool. It is from the guys at google! I really think Jason needs sleep! Other cool tools - typepad.com. Feedburner.com allows you to see who is reading your blog. Google analytics allows you to track various things on your blog!

Kem Meyer- How to write on blogs!
It is your personal blog, but it is not private! It is still the world wide web! Some people just dont understand. It is not the same thing as a diary! More and more corporate business are limiting what you say on your blog. Shawn for Seacoast said their policy is that if you wouldnt say it from the stage, then dont say it on your blog! Granger has a community blog, they set guidelines for it though. They have guidelines for their staff. Even if your blog isnt the church's blog, you are still a figure of the church! You can engage on personal contact outside of the blog! When you go public, you can receive legal action from a blog. A blogger in the room has had legal action taken on him from a picture he posted out of a movie! Your staff always needs to hear about it before goes to your blog! ( just out of courtesy for your staff) Dont apologize for light blogging! It is your blog! Only link to things that are helpful. Balance your opinions on your blog with others! Dont go to far! Take the opportunity to build people up, give credit where credit it due! DO A SPELL CHECK!!! (Something I fail at!) Your gonna make mistakes, admit it! Sometimes it is worth the risk though so let people blog! It makes it transparent! Its ok not to comment, you lurker!!!! Dont pick fights with your comments! Dont argue with commenters! The blogoshpere is authentic! Unwritten rule - dont beg for links!
From fellow bloggers - Shawn - Dont measure your blog by how many comment on it! Scott Hodge - be a.d.d with your blog - be authentic, but dont try too hard! Limit your mistakes! There is a biblical way to handle conflict even in the blogosphere! Tim - keep it short, but if it is long make it useful!

Tony Morgan - who is your audience?
Tony's blog is to equip and teach church leaders! He likes to help pastors! He also has secondary audience - church, critics, community, family. Primary audience is church leaders. Reveal who you are, both personal and business. Keep a medium - dont reveal too much skin, but dont keep it just business like! To build a audience, you have to post regularly. Almost daily! It is a relationship, so Tony keeps the conversation daily! Keep post short! Reveal your personality! Tony uses his blog to build people up! Ingnore negative commentors! Create a personal brand! Figure out who your audience is and who you are! Keep good content! Be opinionated, but dont forget your secondary audience!

Questions - How to promote? Dont over promote, get a start first! Then possibly advertise it!
How many post do you keep up on your page before archiving? Generally 10!
Blogs vs. Forum - Forum's are yesterdays technology! Forum's are harder to use, not personal!
Multiple contributer on blogs - they dont do that yet, but are going to. Hard part is that it is not personal
Any concerns with posting kids pics or family stuff? - figure out your comfort level.

There were lots of laughs in this session! Great job GCC! I really enjoyed this session!

By the way - Tony does the front tuck! I love front tuck t-shirts! But I have seen a t-shirt at Baylor that said, "Friends dont let friends front tuck!"

Comments

[Andy Hosier]

TechPastor - I love the title!

Thanks for being a part of our discussion this week and hanging out in the tech room...

Andy Hosier