Steve Gillmor craps all over Nick Carr about something having to do with Google after apparently having Nick as a guest on his latest podcast, which I used to greatly admire before Steve came out with this non-linking nonsense. Now I think that listening to Steve’s podcast will somehow dilute my brand or my reputation or my credibility or whatever it is that Steve says we should protect by creating a cocoon around ourselves.

Steve, trust me, Nick thinks he’s smarter than you. Although you may be closing in on him in the arrogance department with gems like this (from the same post):

Links produce economic ripples that keep incumbents in charge; removing links puts users in charge. Clicking on a link does not pay the author….

Actually, I don’t think Steve is arrogant at all. I just think he is trying to stuff the blogosphere into a magazine’s hole. They are different animals, Steve, and try as you might, you can’t turn a blog into a magazine. What you can do is turn it into a non-conversational personal web page, circa 1996. You can do that alright. But why would you want to?

Steve seems to have fallen into the Sisyphus trap of basing a blog’s success on the amount of money it makes. That’s like basing the success of a dinner table debate on who pays the check. Both are important, but there is generally no causal relationship.

And while I’m at it, is there any normal person in the world who can decipher this:

[T]he data only starts to speak when you get into the 6 citation and lower range. Above that, the numbers speak to clouds, silos, and their relative opaqueness. Not that that’s bad data; it’s negative gesturing at its root level. GMail, doubleclick, Rojo, Bloglines, etc. It tells us what we already know: Users have agreed to the terms of service in return for what they see as privacy, tools, and ease of use….

Steve, are you trying to be enigmatical? Do you think this sort of top down writing is why blogs are eating magazines’ lunch?

And then, the crown jewel:

Some of my best friends are linkers. Don’t forget to tip your linkers. Don’t want to link? What, and give up show business?

How, exactly, do you think people find your posts Steve? Are lesser beings born with an innate knowledge of where to find your writing? Or anyone else’s? Of course not. They find it via links. Just like I found this post via a link from Dave Winer.

There is more mumbo jumbo in Steve’s post, but when I got to this:

Remember that the greatest yield in time management is the culling of the less interesting. Looked at from a gesture perspective, each affinity link represents a dynamic ecosytem composed of a collaborative group with gestures rippling out and intersecting with other like or unlike-minded affinity systems. Where those emanations are more pronounced and back-referencing, powerful waves are generated. The Beatles are probably the most profound example of such a foldback affinity wave in our lifetimes.

I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed a of place where people just shared ideas and talked about topics of interest, without all the unnecessary navel gazing.

When I woke up, somehow I felt that Steve’s post was, to quote a phrase, “less interesting.”

In yesterday’s edition of the RanchoCast podcast, I talked at length about this new movement in the blogosphere begun by a few self-important bloggers who belive that they don’t need to link out to anyone else because linking somehow reduces their influence and credibility.

I think that is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard and if you’d like to hear why, but don’t want to sit through some great music, here’s an excerpt from that portion of the podcast.

They are the creations of arrogance and vanity.

There seems to be a movement among the self-impressed in the blogosphere to toss up walls around themselves to avoid having to interact with the unwashed masses. I don’t know who came up with this brilliant plan, but if it gets legs, it will set the blogosphere back by years.

First we have Steve Gillmor saying that bloggers shouldn’t link.

Now I read via Richard Querin’s blog that Seth Goldstein says:

Strong web bloggers no longer link.

Somebody please tell me this is a joke. Or satire that I’m too tired to detect. I simply cannot believe that anyone who can type words on a keyboard could write something that ludicrous.

This is the sort of arrogant bullshit that makes me want to stop blogging altogether. I am 100% certain that I wouldn’t spend a nanosecond hanging out with anyone arrogant and naive enough to believe that they are the only ones with anything useful to say in the real world, so why would I want to do it in the blogosphere?

Just because a few curious onlookers read your online diary does not mean you are in any position “to shape thought.” Take away the conversations that are engendered by right-thinking bloggers and the only thoughts that we are shaping is the thought that we are a bunch of geeks who ought to step away from the computer and go outside.

Have some of these bloggers really convinced themselves that they are rock stars? Are they about to start showing up in People Magazine? Anyone who has anything resembling a life would laugh their heads off at the prospect of some nerd trying to claim that because his online diary is read by a a few thousand out of the 6.5 billion people on earth, he has somehow arrived to the point where he can sit atop his pile of slide rules and pocket protectors and preach to the masses, without the need to join in anything resembling a conversation.

I am utterly blown away by the absurdity of what I am reading these days.

If this is where the blogosphere is going, count me out.

Steve Gillmor saying that people shouldn’t link to other blogs/web sites is like someone who just won the lottery crying for its abolition on the grounds that it’s not fair to poor people.

I’ve got mine, so let’s cut off the spigot.

Blogging is not about your reputation or your traffic or how much of an A-Lister you are. It’s about conversations about topics of mutual interest. Links are the way you listen to what someone else has to say. Someone who never links out is like the self-important guy at the party who talks, usually about himself, but never listens.

Many of my favorite blogs (Doc Searls and Tom Morris come immediately to mind) regularly lead me to other interesting voices. Why would any right thinking person argue that is bad?

Robert Scoble has a post today that covers so much interesting stuff, I’m not sure where to start.

First and most importantly, he has made some decisions designed to increase his personal happiness and his blogging experience.

He says:

Some things I’ve changed? 1) No more coffee. 2) No more soda. 3) Xercising. 4) No more unhappy people in my life. 5) Get balance back in my own life.

He also decided to start moderating the Comments on his blog:

This is a huge change for me. I wanted a free speech area, but after having a week off I realize that I need to make a change. That, I’m sure, will lead to attacks of “censorship” and all that hooey. Too bad. I’m instituting a “family room” rule here. If I don’t like it, it gets deleted and deleted without warning — just the same as if you said something abusive in my family room I’d kick you out of my house. If you don’t like that new rule, there are plenty of other places on the Internet to write your thoughts. Start a blog and link here. Etc. Etc.

I am totally down with that. Robert is in a bit of a unique situation since he blogs at least somewhat on behalf of his employer, Microsoft. But blogs absolutely should reflect the “family room” values of their owners. I booted Tagworld out of my Web 2.0 Wars for offending my values, and I encourage and applaud Robert for taking a similar approach to his Comments, which often end up either in an anonymous bash-fest or a conga line of mundane comments made in the name of a link.

Whoever decided that squelching static is somehow inconsistent with free speech got it backwards. Too many idiots hijacking a discussion thread will harm free speech a lot faster than moderated comments will.

Another interesting thing I found in Robert’s post is his reference to Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements. I have never heard of them before, but they are both logical and compelling.

Finally, in his now moderated Comments is a good discussion about the sin-tricity of Second Life, which I talked about the other day. In a Comment to my post, Pathfinder Linden, Second Life’s internet ambassador, addressed the issue as follows:

One thing about Second Life is that it is strictly for adults (18+). However, we have a separate “grid” called “Teen Second Life” (http://teen.secondlife.com/) that is exclusively for 13-17 yr olds. All content on the Teen Grid is PG, there is no gambling or casinos, and it is carefully monitored to keep it as teen-safe as possible.

While I wish there were more non-sex, non-gambling activities in Second Life, I generally buy that explanation.

If we wanted to really do something smart, the Memeorandum/tech blog crowd would find some place in Second Life and build our own little community. If anyone wants to kick start something like that, I’m game.

When the music’s over, yeah
When the music’s over
Turn out the lights

-The Doors

The more I write this blog, the more similarities I see between songwriting and blogging. They have converged, at least in my mind, into two sides of the same coin.

Both kinds of writing are, first and foremost, about self-expression. They are about taking an idea and presenting it in a way that is hopefully a little clever, a little insightful and a little universal. They are about leaving an impression; planting a line in the listener or reader’s mind, so he or she will buy your record or subscribe to your blog.

Mostly, they are both about being heard in a noisy world.

I’ve been a songwriter since the early 70’s, when some high school buddies of mine recorded one of my songs. I still remember where I was the first time I heard that song on the radio (at the public tennis courts in my hometown- someone called me to their car when they heard the DJ introduce the song).

I wrote songs throughout high school, then took a 4 year break as I focused on other things, only some of them study-related, during college.

I spent 3 years in Nashville after college and began writing and playing more while immersed in the great music scene that was the Nashville of the mid-80’s. I’ve written songs pretty consistently since then.

Except, of course, when I don’t.

Many years ago when we first started writing songs together, I told my friend and long-time writing partner, Ronnie Jeffrey, that I went through semi-regular dry spells. Periods of time during which no songs came to me. Times when I could sit with a pen or guitar in my hand for hours on end and not one line or melody would come to me. Usually, these spells last a few months. Sometimes they last a year.

I’ve been in one now for well over a year.

When I started blogging, I had so much to say. I didn’t think I would ever have to struggle to come up with a topic I wanted to address. For a long time, it wasn’t unusual for me to post 5-6 times a day. People talked back, which led to more conversation. I thought the well was bottomless.

But alas, it is not.

Lately, I have found that the same sort of dry spells happen in blogging too. I’ve been in one for a couple of weeks now. Normally, I do most of my writing at night and on the occasional weekend day when the kids are on a sleepover or otherwise not around to play with me. I write drafts of posts or ideas, which I finish up and publish at various times during the week. Lately, when I sit down to write I find that I have less to say than normal.

Phil Sim thinks this may be because the tech-related blogosphere has peaked. I have to admit that most of what Phil says makes sense to me. I still scour my reading list and the memetrackers for interesting conversations to join- I just haven’t felt as compelled to jump into the fray lately. Dave Winer used to be a sure-fix for something to write about. Lately, I’m as bored by his blogging as he is (no offense intended to Dave- my point is that I can understand why he’s about to stop blogging). Even my always dependable buddy Mathew Ingram seems to be struggling a little to find stuff to write about.

But somehow this feels a little familiar. As if I’ve faced the same wall before.

It feels amazingly like a songwriting dry spell. Ideas that lose steam. Draft posts unfinished. A vague apathy when I read something that normally would elicit an immediate response.

When you’re young and irresponsible, there are ways to kick-start yourself out of a dry spell. Read Carlos Castaneda, travel to India, change religions, drink mezcal. Don’t think for a minute that a musician’s inability to make music in middle age as good as the music he made in his 20’s is a coincidence. It’s not.

When a dry spell happens to a grown-up with responsibilities, about all you can do is ride it out. Write less so your quality doesn’t suffer too much. Wait for something or someone to kick start you into a flow of opinions and perspectives.

Every time I have a songwriting dry spell, I wonder if I’ve written my last song. Having been in one now for so long, I may have. I don’t want the same thing to happen to my blogging.

I want to want to write more. Someone throw me a rope. Pick a fight with me. Just do something to kick-start the conversation.

I hope the blogging dry spell will pass like the prior songwriting ones did.

In the meantime, all I can do is ride it out. And wait.

Amanda Chapel has launched a PR blog called Strumpette.

What better way to kick-start some traffic than to play games with one of the most popular and well-respected bloggers in the world? Right?

No. Wrong. Very wrong.

She leads off by discussing an office pool she is in concerning how long Steve Rubel will stay at his new employer, Edelman. She goes on to give some alleged insight into the politics at Edelman and then she starts blasting Steve in the name of attention and traffic.

I’m not going to go point by point because I don’t know squat about the PR business or the politics at Edelman and because I don’t want to give this story or this approach legs, other than to join Doc in betting that Steve runs Edelman one day and to chastise Stowe a little for not calling BS on it (Stowe is one of my favorite reads, notwithstanding this momentary lapse).

In blogosphere politics, just like in real life office politics, some folks believe you can rise faster by throwing rocks at those around you than by just working hard and letting the results take care of themselves. I see it happen all the time with Scoble. People call for him to get fired and worse, all in the name of traffic and eyeballs.

These blogs are great, but behind every one of them is someone who is trying to make a living and live a life. It’s fine to disagree- I do it all the time. But how you disagree with someone tells more about what you’re made of than how you agree with them.

Blogs are getting to be like cars. It’s easy to shoot the finger at someone from the safety of your car. It’s getting too easy to do that from your blog. Snarky may be fine when we’re disagreeing about music, movies or politics. The rules ought to be different when we’re talking about our lives and jobs.

I think disagreeing with someone, be it Steve, Scoble or anyone else, in a way that may impact their life or their livelihood is one big bucket of wrong.

I continue to be intrigued by the idea of an unconference. I posted on the topic a few weeks ago and Christopher Carfi was kind enough the give me a primer via a blog post and a Comment.

I’ve never spoken at an unconference, but I’ve spoken at a lot of conferences and I’ve been to and presided over a lot of meetings. And I’ve listened to a few meetups via podcasts, which I like everyone else in the world listen to at my computer.

So I’m starting to get a handle on the conference/unconference business.

Today Dave Winer posts about unconferences and links to a cheat sheet he and some others pulled together about how to structure one. I have a couple of thoughts about all of this.

First, it seems to me that the key to an unconference must be a strong, impartial and fair-minded moderator. One who won’t favor his or her friends and perspectives. One who will be fair to all. And most of all one who will keep some order to the event and avoid the inevitable descent into chaos that occurs when everyone wants to talk at the same time.

It’s interesting that Dave posted the how-to on unconferences, since his attempt to bring up a 6 year old fight with John Markoff during the Berkeley Cybersalon is exactly the thing that should not be allowed to happen at a conference- un or not. If someone wants to pick a fight, do it offline. There are better things for the group at large to talk and hear about.

The hardest job of anyone who is presiding over a meeting or, I presume, an unconference, is to keep the issue from becoming personal or personality based. And if something is conference-worthy, there will always been some emotional buttons that, if pushed, can result in a loss of control and focus.

In theory, I am highly in favor of unconferences. I often wonder why I’m at the podium and the audience is in the seats when I speak at conferences. I have certainly wondered why others were at various podiums while I was in various seats. If done correctly, the unconference solves this dilemma by putting everyone on equal footing.

It’s another tool used to flatten the earth. I like the flat earth.

Moderators will still have to deal with the fact that sometime a person’s desire to be heard is inversely proportional to what he or she really has to say.

On the whole, I think the unconference idea is sound. But I suspect many of them can, do and will become chaotic, particularly when there is a large number of voices in the crowd.

The trick will be to create an equal right to be heard while maintaining order and a little structure.

And yes, the title to this post is a tribute to one of my favorite books of the 70’s.

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conferences, unconferences