I attended day one of a Weblogs Business Strategies conference in Boston on Monday. As I arrived, I wondered if I should have stayed for day two but no need to worry. Not surprisingly, bloggers covered it quite well, particularly Debbie's Blog and Heath Row's Media Diet. No surprises there - but it was the spectacle that was a little pretentious. Everyone in attendance wanted everyone else to KNOW that they were blogging. Way too much self-important promotion going on. But hell, it's a conference and that's what people do at a conference, right?

Anyway, got in Sunday night. Left Monday night. With two freelance articles due in addition to my full time contracting gig, I had a few other things to do. Until I can find someone to pay me full time to blog, the real world beckons. Which is my biggest criticism: too many speakers talked about issues from their personal experience and most of it doesn't apply to business. And strategies were decidely absent.

I was struck over and over again at how similar the discussions resembled those I'd heard back in 1997-98 when everyone was trying to figure out what "broadband" was - I was editorial director for a cable modem service's portal - not sure they've figured that one out yet either. The first day's panels inevitably returned to the same question: what is a weblog?

And of course the white, male, midddle-aged veterans of blogging - Dave Winer, Dr. Weinberger (who gave the best presentation) and Doc Searls to name drop a few - all had their points of view. But ultimately, to me, at least, the beautiful thing about blogging is that every single person in that room had their own correct answer to the question. And that's as it should be. There is something fundamentally wrong about trying to define "a blog" because each will be, and should be, as unique as the individual or group behind it. And trying to "control" what a blog is or "define" who's a natural born blogger is piffle. The focus should have been more on dealing with the realities of corporate-think in companies today - and how blogs are a real threat to that. Winer's response - "then don't blog" - isn't good enough. For that money, I had hoped to be given insight, tools, advice, resources - ANYTHING - to further the effort of creating business blogs.

Instead, panelists said there aren't enough business blogs yet to really judge. Not sure I buy that. Will get back to you later.

On another note, I was a little surprised at the general star-fucker power these guys had. You know what I mean - perfectly normal people get flustered and intimidated in the mere presence of famous bloggers and are grateful for any little morsel of acknowledgement they're given. And I'm not immune. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to go up to Dave Winer, introduce myself and tell him I thought his December 2002 post on Weblogs in Meatspace was brilliant. So that said, in reading over more blogs today, it confirmed for me that there was too much star-fucking going on. I'm shocked really. I think blog superstars would be anathema to most bloggers. But what do I know?

Dave was very nice, by the way, but he should stick to writing. It was tough to follow his presentation - and while he encouraged comments from the audience, he didn't respond well to many of them. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Reminded me of Gary Hart.

Other random thoughts:
* I think anyone who presumes to know more than you do should be ignored on general principle.
* Job layoffs - and often prolonged unemployment - in the web publishing industry are as much responsible for the growth of weblogs as anything else.
* Re: the panelist from Wellesley who thought it was funny to have started a blog about a coworker who wasn't into blogs. Not sure what's funny about that. Felt a little creepy to me. I think he was born right around the time I graduated from college - not that I'm playing the age card. Just an observation.
* Not having a strategy...is a strategy.
* John Lawlor said it doesn't matter if no one reads your blog. And I couldn't agree more. I'm glad for comments and referrals but I don't write for an audience. I write for me. Not sure superstars are capable of doing that once they've been placed on a pedestal - whether they wanted to be there or not.
* Bloggers are very forgiving, know a sense of humor is a terrible thing to waste and are idealists at heart.
* Blogs are like picking up the phone or writing an email - just another way to say whatever it is I have to say.
* Despite what Searls and Winer say, blogging isn't journalism. That isn't to say there isn't some excellent journalism happening in blogs. It's really about the relationship between the writer and the reader. Different expectations are at work when you read a blog and when you read news. I agree most people aren't concious of the expectation - but it's there. When I read a blog, I expect a revelation burst from a person who cares about something that I care about. When I read news, I expect to find out what happened, as detailed and nuanced as possible, and every now and then, with some perspective. And I don't buy the line that you don't get both sides of the story in journalism - the point is you're SUPPOSED to get both sides in journalism. There is no requirement of that kind with blogs. Both should be based in truth - but they are different things. Maybe blogs will force journalists to get back to doing what they're supposed to do.

I'm glad to have been a part of the conference. It's clear this is/could be the start of something important and I'm sure I haven't been complimentary enough - but this is outrage.com, remember? More later if I feel like it. But I think that covers it.