About the last, I'd think something corporate like this:

Realize that blogging is a major propaganda tool and exploit it accordingly. There are enough mechanisms associated with blogs that nothing sits outside of your reach for communication -- music, advertising, feeds, linking, news compilation, data mining, and all sorts of technological integration. If an organization chooses to use it, they should change blogging into a mini-electronic journal/library. If it's an individual, the same rules apply but individuals can have tons more liberty in spreading their opinions if they avoid taking too much to heart too soon. If there's a single blogger who wants to do an issue blog, it's important to make sure everything has a link (personal, informational, or tangential) to that issue. That's what garners attention; that's what sparks debate.

thanks for your view and thoughts on this, M.

The tiny bit I have observed about blogging would be that it is pretty much like what journalists talk about after they leave work and are at the bar in the second hour. Little or no need to limit the editorializing or impose self censorship.
Kind of like an "If I Ruled the World" outlook. The left blogs are more like this than the right are. The right tends to be caught up in some kind of mass psychology of neocon fascism {Sorry, Wilhelm}, running a pep rally for freaky Republicans. I don't think slightly drunk journalists are into that mindset.
Have a wonderful time in the Gran Manzana, Nez. Don't be Shy!

Okay, I'm going to back track. The blogosphere isn't really something you "use" so much as something a person or organization plugs into with whatever they want to bring to the table. Each new addition provides a missing link. The hyped part about blogging stems from connections, connecting -- connections don't come from such a sterile, propagandizing experience like I described, necessarily. They can do so, but blogging shouldn't feel coerced or contrived, regardless of the authorship. The passion's where you place it. Of course, there is a lot of important things to do with organizing and placement and reinforcement, but there's feeling that's guiding where those different elements should be.

and to clarify, that bottom blockquote was...well, the initial jumping off point for describing what my function will be there, (and really what the whole day is about, involving everyone who is sharing information and ideas on the topic). i dont think the request/agenda will be so cold/dry (not to mention "mimic" is a word that brings unfortunate and unintended connotations). there was more talk and description of it—

i'm approaching my part as talking about what i think is powerful about blogging, and what potential i see for affecting people and more, as in how these things tie into the immigration issue as i've seen and read and experienced it through being both a reader and a writer and a compadre of many others blogging on this issue. where i see movement, where i see indifference, where activism is enhanced online, where it is stymied, et etc, thre really is a lot to say on the issue, a lot of places to go with it. mostly because, i think, the medium and means and methods are so new, relatively.

M, you touched on something like Marisa of Latina Lista (latinalista.net) said to me in private (not anymore!) correspondence. she comes to blogging from the journo world, so she made as miliar point about it being a medium that personalizes issues. and i agree. that is an important component of why this blogging thing really sticks with people. on both sides of the screen.

--

RC, you also touched on this. I think there are other ideas to bring to the table as well (and have noted others) but it is no coincidence that so many people mention this part of it. i know i am dead to the sound of contrived, equivocating, plastic bullshit. and i think many of us are. look upon the throne. the king of bullshit reigns. and see what he hath wrought... (even tho on immigration, bush is less ugly than in many areas)

thanks for the wishes RC. i'll try not to be shy. ;)

--

the personal aspect of the blogosphere is known, and it is true that (i feel) messages ought be crafted with heart and humanity and not just factoid and link and calculation (if you want to get under people's muscles and bones and inspire movement), but also, i think part of the challenge these groups face (and why they are holding this meeting) is not just in seeking to tap into and utilize the best parts of the 'Net (or rather what it does best), but also in finding a way to overcome the resistance that so often meets pro-immigrant advocates and messages. and that is a tough one, tho i have some ideas on it. i hope they prove helpful, add something good to the mix that is bound to be rich on the tenth with much ideas and talkings.

Second everything that M said. I feel like I have had such a fail-and-then-surprise experience in the world o' the blog stuffs, and I don't know if any of this could extrapolate to what pro-immigration advocates are needing/wanting to do online. But God knows if there is a way for me to talk about me, AND my book, it will not go untapped. So, I went to this how-to-promote-your-book all day workshop months before my book came out. And a well known blogger from book-obsessed circles spoke about how to utilize the blog phenomenon to promote your book. She said don't just approach bloggers with a "hey, I think I have a book that would interest you and your readers, could you please post about my book?" She said that the only real way blogging does a fucking thing is through what you (Nez) and M talk about - through real connection, through mutual investment in each other's hearts and trajectories.

So being the wanna-be-but-somewhat-inept huckster that I am, I was like, "Okay! Book-obsessed blog world, here I come! And I will discuss your stuff with you too so that you don't just think I am here to ask you to shill for me!" Well, as it turns out, while it's true that I can, through the power of my loving-to-talk-ness, find ways to converse with almost anyone, I am not so much exploding with passion about publishing and book marketing and whatnot. Try as I might, I could not put down roots in that part of blog country where it was said one might successfully promote her book with the right relationships. Not that they weren't nice to me! Or that some didn't promote my book! Just that it wasn't where I felt personally connected, period.

Flash forward to earlier this year, and a nice woman asks me if I want to blog for a new feminist online mag in small part because of that book, and through that I end up reading another feminist blog, and through that blog I end up this past Memorial Day Weekend clicking on all these links that led me to radical people of color blogs that are now pretty much a daily part of what I think and feel about.

What the hell does this have to do with anything! Certainly not book sales, as my first book, and the one I'm working on now, have nothing to do with where my heart and brain live online. Really what it means to me is that there is a difference between putting in effort to connect - not a malevolent thing in itself - versus actually, organically connecting. So it is with that in mind that I appreciate the wisdom of these groups contacting you and asking for your experience, and the experience of the other person you recommended to them. You are a blog voice that is engaging, and engages with other blog voices. The women bloggers I am in love with are about each other, not just about each others's blogrolls. I would think that it could be effective for the groups you will be speaking to, to facilitate folks like you all venturing into the online places where their hearts and minds will also live, not just places where they can maximize exposure for their own voices. Their voices need and deserve exposure. But it is what you said about "heart and humanity" that figures in most, from where I sit. Those are things that are generated and nurtured and expanded between people, not things that are simply said by one and directed at an object-audience of others.

speak to your thoughts on how progressives in general have used the blogosphere

It says something about me that I read this as "used up the blogosphere."

Eat a knish for me while you're there, Nez. Can't wait to hear about what happens.

This is utterly basic: alternative views on the news, and pointing up news that is relegated to the back pages, not reported, or erroneously left for dead. You already know this. And: starting and waging campaigns of various sorts. You know that, too.

What has come home to me the past few days for other contexts is that there really is stuff that is unpublishable - not because it is fringe or not well written but because it is too challenging. In that way blogs are not just what journalists would say in their second hour, but what is censored.

To some extent you're right, Cero; but I'd argue that for certain issues the online medium probably has to go beyond those common uses or else it will seem rather contrived. A lot of online, popular alternative media outlets have sterilized themselves almost as much as regular news media for credibility and acclaim. A major organization that wants to "use" online media for those purposes has to ensure that when doing so, it's not turning off its audience so it can find its URL in the mouths of talking heads and pundits. A good site gets the people talking to each other and with the managers of the site, the organization talking to the people and the larger media world, retains its reporting credibility without watering down its message -- it basically should have a palpable sense of outreach and integrity woven into its framework. And if it's going for presenting an issue as sensitive as civil and human rights for undocumented immigrants, the requirement rises higher than if it's trying to be the immigrant Huffington Post, for example.

Will be thinking about you for the flight, Nezua, and also look forward to hearing more.

*Very* good points, M!!! :-)

Several excellent points, well presented and thoughtful. Not allowing my lack of experience or knowledge to get in the way of my expressing a suggestion; consider a multitiered approach which includes at the top M's "credibility, outreach, and integrity" with a second tier consisting of cero's described "more challenging and fringe" (but well written as noted)sites. There is an audience for both, and more, and all striving toward the same goal.

thank you all, i appreciate all your energy and thought here. i did kick up some of your ideas, and specifically mentioned marisa from latina lista's thoughts (in an email she gave me some), xicanopwr's Adopt-a-Blogger idea, and the conversation on this page in general, as well as pieces from various comments. sadly, i did not claim credit for others' ideas.