Blogworld New Media Expo

In November, I presented at this conference called the Blogworld & New Media Expo. They have what is called a virtual ticket, and I’m working my way through some of the sessions and taking notes.

Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki did a presentation on Google+, a social media platform (is that what you call it?) that I’ve largely ignored until now. I set up my profile. I know a couple of good friends are on there. I check in to see what they’ve posted lately. That was about it.

Guy says Facebook is for friends and family and Google+ is for those who share your passion. He says the first thing I ought to do is to search for key words that describe my passion. Okay, item learned #1: I can search for key words on Google+. I can’t do that on Facebook, right? So I try searching by “writing” and “teaching” and what do I find? TENURE-TRACK POSITION IN CREATIVE WRITING (FICTION) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA. It was the second post. I hadn’t thought about job openings being on Google+. It would be a certain kind of writer and teacher to find such a post on Google+ as opposed to the pages of The Writer’s Chronicle, right? Some universities would never post on Google+ and some would most want to find future teachers and writers there. That’s my guess. Got an opinion?

Chris says you can click into your circles and just see posts from that circle. So I could have a “writing” circle and a “basketball coach” circle and take only a look at those things when I want to. He also says to try FindPeopleOnPlus.Com. There, you could not only search by someone’s name–William Torgerson–but also by key words such as “writer.” Chris says he found 87 farmers. He plays Texas Hold’em with his dad on Google+.

There’s something called Hangout where you can get together online via video. I can see possibilities for writing groups or classes to meet virtually. Okay, I’m convinced to do more on Google+. Maybe tonight I’ll take a look at organizing my circles.

You can read more about Guy Kawasaki here.

And Chris Brogan here.

Are you on Google+? If you are, what do you do there?

Here’s the plan: for an undetermined stretch of Wednesdays (how long can I keep it going and do any of you care?) I’m going to try and share some element of my teaching that invites some writing on your part. I’m going to start with a listing activity I call writing territories. From those territories you’ll tell me ABOUT one of the words or phrases you’ve listed, or you’ll tell a STORY that comes from the territories. From there we’ll work into some experiments trying all sorts of strategies for writing first sentences. It’s an activity connected to the idea that some of our best teachers can be the texts that surround us. I call these mentor texts.

Below you’ll find the video version of this blog post, and once I get to a spot where it makes sense to post a handout (perhaps to be used by a teacher in a classroom) I’ll make that available to you on my website at TheTorg.Com.

Next Wednesday Nov. 16th, I’ll post the writing territories and invite you to post your responses to the prompts on your own blog. Once you have that up, you can leave a comment to my blog post and link us up to your answers, perhaps with a brief summary or reflection of how the activity worked. If don’t have a blog and want to set one up, I have a tutorial video here. Of course all you have to do is ask Google, “How do I set up a WordPress blog?” and you’ll have more help than you know what to do with.

These Write With Me Wednesdays won’t be just me telling you how I teach. I hope you’ll critique or otherwise add to how these activities might work for a variety of purposes. I suspect those who might be willing to give this a try will be those who want to write, perhaps some bloggers I’ve met in the past year attending two Blogworld New Media Expo Conferences, and also teachers who teach writing and those who are looking to collaborate with other writers and teachers on the craft of their work.

What do you think? Are you up for this? Suggestions for my plan?