I got invited to a local bloggers' brunch and had a very good time. There's a write up at South Florida Daily Blog, Blogger Brunch Bonding.
What struck me the most besides what Rick mentions — and the moment where the woman from the next table joined in was almost a Woody Allen – Marshall MCluhan moment — is that we're all of an age. Where are the young local political bloggers? On Facebook?
Where are the young bloggers? I would guess that they just haven’ started blogging yet. Blogging takes a certain amount of boring dedication. You have to post every day or no one will read your blog. Young people generally 1) don’t have that kind of discipline; and 2) don’t have that many truly interesting things to say (lacking experience).
Funny, you see the same thing at weekend running races and triathlons. The fastest age groups are from 35-49. The men and women in their 20’s just don’t have the day-in-day-out dedication necessary to compete.
Professor Froomkin,
Is there a website, book or other resource which explains the technical side of setting up and running a blog or website? I’ve thought about doing it for years, but have no idea how to do it from a technical standpoint.
In the future, you should teach a blogging class and/or work with the school of communications to create one for law students. Unfortunately, in all my years of formal education I don’t believe I ever had the opportunity to take a class which taught students how to set up and run a website or blog. If I could have taken a class on it in law school or undergrad I would have, and it’s still something I’d consider taking if I came across somewhere that taught it.
The technical side of a basic blog is so easy that it could be taught in an hour. Doing fancy stuff is only a bit harder. It’s far too easy for academic credit. I have thought sometimes of doing a seminar in which the work product would be blogging about recent decisions, but that’s different.
There are a plethora of online resources to get you started — start with typepad.com or blogger.com for example. I prefer a hosted solution because you have more control over the options, but that requires getting a hosting contract with an ISP. Pick one with good help pages on getting started (google will lead you to good hosts; I use Dreamhost, a sort of cheap and cheerful service provider, but not a six sigma provider).
Thanks Professor, I’ll look into that.
“I have thought sometimes of doing a seminar in which the work product would be blogging about recent decisions, but that’s different.” I think that would be great, especially if each class started its own blog so that students learned the technical side as they went along.
There is a tremendous amount of legal work product produced by law students, however unless that is published in a journal somewhere it is usually lost. A blog would be a great way of getting that work out into the public domain so that it can be used. Also, I’m sure that it would facilitate some sort of constructive engagement with practitioners or other researchers working on similar topics.
Actually, in my experience students are very shy about any postings that can be traced back to them, fearing that employers and clients will hold it against them. The ‘what happens in Facebook stays in your life forever’ message has been learned all too well.
I agree with those students. The risk/reward ratio for blogging is very oversold, from the fact that blog-evangelists hype the successes but not the failures. People in professional careers who are not already “established” – or interested in the professional-pundit game – should not be encouraged to blog, by any means. They are at the bottom of the hierarchy, and thus they have a lot more to lose than they have to gain.
Quick rebuttals:
1) It’s “conversation”!
No, it’s writing, which “stays in your life forever”.
2) You can stand out from the crowd.
We can’t all stand out. Someone has to be in the crowd. Stand out some better way.
3) You can make professional connections.
You can just as likely make professional opponents.
4) Look at me, I’m doing great.
That’s nice. Someone wins the lottery too.
5) Some day everyone will be forgiving of mistakes
Until that day comes, let the trust-fund babies take the hit.