I’m old now.

Okay, maybe just in blog years. This morning I went to a panel on blogging for the south Sound chapter of the PRSA, along with one of the other people in my department.

Had a bit of a conversation beforehand with a guy from Sterling Communications who was on the panel, and he thought the word originated around 2002, which I knew — old grizzled veteran that I am — that it was older. (Googling later reveals that it was either Peter Merholz or Jorn Barger, sometime in 1999, which sounds about right. Honestly, I felt like a newbie when I started in April 2001, like all the old-timers had been doing this forever.)

I also talked a little bit to Janet from Marqui, you know, the company that paid a bunch of people the beginning of last year for blogging. She asked what I’d thought, and I honestly couldn’t remember. I have this sense that my thinking had floated back and forth, but I never wrote anything about it here that I can recall. I have this vague memory of commenting on one of Shelley’s posts, but apparently not.

The third panelist was Mark Briggs (?) from the News Tribune, who really impressed me throughout. They now take comments on every single article on their site, not just the blogs, and it even effects story placement (on the site? in the physical paper?).

One nice turn of phrase: “affinity media” from the Sterling guy, although in a more pessimistic mood it can certainly mean the same thing as “echo chamber.” (As per Rebecca Blood, et al.)

One disconcerting phrase: “as more civilized folks enter” from Janet, in ref to the blogosphere (oy! I remember when that phrase first came up and was mocked roundly. And we blogged in the snow, uphill both ways.) being the wild west.

Also, she asked who is blogging now, and when I raised my hand, I said “not this exact second” which got a bit of a chuckle. Tho…I sort of missed having my laptop to be able to take really good notes instead of the half-assed ones I have in my paper journal. 😉

All in all, I’m glad I went, esp. with the co-worker — good conversation in the car back! And, whoa, a pothole (!!!!) on I5 had traffic completely stopped the other direction. Maybe the radio said pothole and meant sinkhole, because that was a humongous backup.

Anyway…a good thing, partially to see where the local PR folks, particularly the govt/edu types, are with the whole blogging experience. I didn’t hear anything that made me want to jump up and yell, “but no, you’ve got it all wrong” which is a good start.

And the funniest thing, talking to somebody afterwards and having him be all super-amazed that I’ve been blogging almost 5 years. 😉 He even asked for my blog’s name…damn it, why couldn’t I have picked a domain name that makes sense spoken aloud?!