"...And yes, I know, I'm a flash in the pan and I'm getting a big head and this will all be over tomorrow, but here's the thing: it's been going on for three years now. It slows down after each video (praise be to Allah), but it hasn't really ever stopped. I've been busy the whole time. It confounds me and it confounds my friends and family, but for whatever reason, people keep on watching the videos and crazy offers keep coming my way."

--Internet-famous dancing guy Matt Harding, writing in his blog about becoming a CAA client. Matt's around the world travels doing that joyful little dance everywhere remind me of the community--and humanity--we all share (which is the point, right?)

I'm always leary of everyone's "Top" lists (tho of course I thrill to be included on them), but there's a joy, range and sassiness in Orli's latest list of 50 powerful women bloggers that makes me want to to share it,. (Okay, the list also makes me want to dance to it--she's got 80s disco as the soundtrack for a slide show.)

Some of the bloggers new to me that I will be checking out for inclusion to my reading list include:

• Cleverclogs - Marjolein Hoekstra
• Slikcharm - Laurel Papworth
• Profy - Cyndy Aleo-Carreira
• Lorelle - Lorelle VanFossen
• Nten - Holly Ross
• SiliconCally - Calley Nye
• GettingAttention -Nancy Schwartz
• Michelle Martin - Michelle Martin
• IslandGirl -Lisa M.Shammas
• KeeryHowley - Kerry Howley
• Thornet - Michelle Thorne
• Carobotero - Carolina Botero
• Lisa Goldman - Lisa Goldman
• Mideastyouth - Esra'a Al Shafei
• Blacklooks - Sokari Ekine
• Pop17 - Sarah Austin
• Crushofthemonth - Myriam
• Consortpartners - Kathy Johnson
• Rocksinmydryer - Shannon Lowe
• Clear Blue dei - Susan Mellott
• Geekspace for Women - Maria Webster

That's almost half the list, which means, once again, Orli has taught me something new.

Marjoelein Hoekstra has put together a twitter list (aka twitterpack) for these folks (explains some new follows)

NOTE: If you're on this list, and you come here-or if you're a blogger who'd like to support the inclusion of women and diverse voices in the conference realm, I urge you to add yourself to The Speaker's Wiki, a resource for speakers lovingly tended by Mary Hodder, another amazingly wise blogger who I'd add to the above list in a flash. (Ross Mayfield and the folks at Socialtext also deserve kudos for hosting this.)

"Women who are speaking, who are consumers who talk, sort of like journalists, sort of like authors; we are conscious, individually and, more and more, collectively, of our power to speak and be seen in the world of public discourse. We have jobs and we're in public, we're out of the domestic sphere, but our thoughts, the way we're framed in public conversations, in the media, isn't yet all the way out of the domestic sphere. My point is that we are no longer containable by old style media. We aren't an elite of "influencers" to be courted and co-opted. We're journalists who write about who we are, not what we're told to write, like a million mommy-blogging Hunter S. Thompsons writing The Curse of Lono instead of their assigned sports article."

--Liz Henry, blogging about women online, post blogher.

"I find the colloquialism "You must join the conversation" a tired phrase legacy of 2006. It's overused, oversold, thrown around and just not accurate."

--Blogger Jeremiah Oywwang, Web Strategist, writing about how rankings, ratings, and even reading can be among the greatest behaviors within a community.

I seem destined to have back and forth discussions with Steve Hodson, who picked up something I wrote yesterday about becoming more engaged with twitter and friendfeed than I have been. Steve's a really eloquent, persuasive writer, and I was engaged in reading the piece when I got to this statement that just stopped me:
"While blogging has been heralded as the new news medium there are those of the early adopter crowd who have used blogging as a way for them to have conversations but blogging was never meant to be the end point where they would stay. In the meantime though they attracted the most attention and as a result those of us that wanted to make blogging a career had to work even harder to get noticed."

So, did Steve just say the following:

• People who started blogging a few years ago (2003 for me) are making it hard for people like Steve to get noticed?
• Non-professional bloggers (like me) should get out of the way of people who want to be professional bloggers (like Steve?)
• and, finally
• Those old folks in the early adopter crowd didn't really have the committment to keep blogging, unlike Steve who is called to the vocation so deeply he wants to make his living from it?

Say it ain't so, you of short vision and big hubris, who make lots of silly and incorrect assertions here.

• First of all dude, what is a "professional" blogger? Someone who wants to live on the AdSense pennies they collect? Someone who starts a blog publishing network?
• Second, you're bitching because there are people who started blogging before you who get in the way of your getting noticed? Bah!  Blogging is a  cream rises to the top process, not a who's the best looking dude of the three left on the desert island. Scarcity does not relate to quality, face life and take a deep breath. (Your friend Corvida is a great example of that--she's super talented and now widely read--and when did she start, six months ago?)
• You imply that the writing that non "professional" bloggers do just makes noise, and you say tha FF and twitter make it  easier for "professional" bloggers to rise above the noise because those loud fools just go over there. Steve, this sounds alot like the "I belong to a special priesthood and you stay away from my clubhouse" that old time journalists did  and as such it is utter bullshit.

Summary of what Susan thinks:

• Steve is a smart guy with good ideas whose blog I enjoy.
• This particular post is full of bull hooey and mistaken assertions.

For the past four years, my pattern has been to get up early, have breakfast, check email, read, blog, and walk the dog, not always in that order. Now, that's changing.

Getting up early, check; walking the dog, check; eating breakfast, check--but I'm not blogging. Instead, I'm checking twitter, frendfeed and my email, then switching to facebook.

At that point, I'm 40 minutes into my allotted hour + 10, so this is definitely a behavior-changing pattern.

Here's where the shifts are I want to note and talk about:
a) Relying on social network connections for news.  Jerry Yang might resign? Someone tweeted the link.

b) Treating discourses more like transactions--getting short snippets of broadcast info from people works well in twitter, friendfeed comments.

c) Email is spam and items that need discussion. Notes on wire frames for a remote project need email--meeting for lunch should not (even if it still does.)

d) Blogging is for sharing longer and more thoughtful items (don't fit in a tweet or a bookmark), and posting digital assets--sound.video, images--that don't fit in a twit or SMS format.

Of course, I am still blogging pretty much daily and wil continue to do so, but I'm probably typical of alot of people for whom the blog(which replaced the newspaper online) is no longer the information source I rush to in the morning--now I go to my virtual communities, where people not only tell me how they are, they tell me what they are paying attention to.

How has your attention shifted? Do you fit this pattern? Have another one? Share, please.

Reading this this am just made me get that big smile--Christine is so smart, and so shrewed--and First Round is a great team--this is wonderful news--and smart hiring on Josh's part, IMHO:

" Big personal announcement today! I'm officially joining First Round Capital. (Thanks very much to Josh for his warm welcome.) I'll be working closely with Rob Hayes in the San Francisco office."

Way to go, folks. Want to show you all what we're working on at Peoples Software.

From around the twittersphere, blogosphere, etc  this weekend:

Loren Feldman: "People like the puppet more than you because he is more real than you are. More honest than you are, smarter than you are. More human than you are. People want the Shel puppet to win. The same can't be said for you my friend."

Dave Winer: "They let Shel Israel off the hook. He gets his name back, the puppet is retired. The mock trial they were planning for the TechCrunch summer party, that I learned of this morning, is cancelled."

Dave Winer: "All I could think about is how mean this community had become."

Susan sez: Mean, indeed.

So, this is the last night in Michigan, heading back to Boulder tomorrow.  It's been a interesting two  weeks--I spent more than hald of it working, mostly from a little cafe and on stolen, faint wi-fi on the porch of the cottage, the rest of the time trying to have the vacation we had so long planned.

Thanks go to the team at PSCO for their support through all this--and the work they've done so well--as well as to A, who was supportive of turning time off into remote work. In many ways, choosing to work remotely during a summer program this intense seemed like madness. On the other hand, as someone whose been around dot com frenzy a number of times, I knew this stint of time would not be a make or break for our success if we all agreed to it and handled it well.

Or, to be more blunt, what I really mean is:

• In some ways it was audacious to leave the team at this moment.
• But not going away would have meant canceling the whole trip.
•  I've made those kinds of personal sacrifices before and they helped scuttle an important relationship..and turned out not to be as make or break as I'd thought.
• So this time I wanted to balance the work commitment and the family commitment
• And I think I did.

So now I've had this great trip, I've observed a few things:

• I am both compulsively connected to the net and an obsessive worker
• I have to have vacations where I balance work and fun or there are no vacations (this may be sad but true right now)
• Technology makes it easy to be this way now, hallelujah!

Lots more posting to come as I get back to a decent net connection.

Are you someone passionate about social media--and an online marketing and/or relationship management person? 
The Knight Foundation is looking for someone to help the team (which includes me and some very cool Knight staffers) manage and evangelize the upcoming series of grants, which start with new proposals (which means starting with promoting that we need and want proposals).

Here's the job description:

For the 2009 round of the Knight News Challenge, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is looking to contract with a highly networked Web 2.0 marketing and account management freelancer to:

• Manage programs designed to increase the visibility for the Knight News Challenge,
• Traffic, coordinate, and measure deliverables for third party relationships that will help build on the established audiences (journalists and bloggers) and increase the number of high-quality applications from the following "growth area target groups"
• Run email and blogging marketing and outreach campaigns
• Assist in event planning for town halls and awards programs
• Support community growth

Scope:

• 25 hours per week for $30 / hr
• On monthly basis, from July 1 -September 30, 2008
• Contract-basis only. This is not an employed position.

Profile:

The ideal candidate will be able to:

• Understand Web 2.0 and have relationships in the community to draw on
• Take direction to organize stakeholders (Knight staff, grantees, KNC winners, etc) to carry out email campaigns promoting the KNC
• Manage email campaigns, media partnerships and online marketing for the KNC.
• Support engaging the Web 2.0 community in innovative ways, through meet-ups and other events and documenting results
• Work with Knight Foundation's Program Manager, Program Association and online community manager to deliver on goals
• Manage data and analytics for marketing and PR campaigns and report on effectiveness.

Goals:

The marketing goals for the 2009 Knight News Challenge:

• Receive a higher percentage of Knight News Challenge applications from:
  • Young people (<26)
  • Non-traditional journalists
  • Non-students
  • Web 2.0 and social media developers and strategists, including those working with new platforms and mobile platforms
• Generate 3,000+ high quality applications
• Have at least 500 applicants from the "growth area target groups"

nterested?

Please contact Marc Fest,
href="mailto:knc-marketing@abcdelta.com">knc-marketing@abcdelta.com, with your resume and proposal.

About the Knight News Challenge

The Knight News Challenge (KNC) funds ideas that use digital media to deliver news and information to geographically defined communities. The 2007 Knight News Challenge attracted 1,600 applicants. The 2008 contest drew more than 3,000, with a significant increase in the percentage of young and non-US participants. For more visit www.newschallenge.org

About Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Knight Foundation focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change. To learn more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.