Nearly 100 Virginia political bloggers and wannabe bloggers gathered this weekend in Charlottesville for the second annual blog summit, sponsored by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia (and underwritten in part by Verizon).
Among Friday's speakers were Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, VCU political scientist Robert Holsworth, and "the blogfather," Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com, who spoke at dinner about his book, Crashing the Gate. There were also workshops on "Blogging 101" and promoting and enhancing one's blog.
Saturday saw breakout sessions for workshops on ethics and blogging, campaign finance laws, building a community, and blogging and journalism, with luncheon speeches by Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling (in full campaign mode) and Washington Post correspondent Michael Shear.
Norm and Romeocat have already posted their thoughts about the conference. ImNotEmeril has a tongue-in-cheek report on Friday's after-hours activities. Waldo has separate posts on Day One and Day Two. Others will surely follow.
Below you will find a few photos from the weekend. I thought I took a lot more pictures, but when I got home the number was smaller than I remembered, and the usable shots were even fewer. I know that Coy Barefoot was photographing the event for the Sorensen Institute blog, so visit there if you want to see more of the many people from around the Commonwealth who attended. (The Sorensen blog also includes some audio recordings of the major speeches at the conference.)
I may write more later. (Last year I didn't get around to reporting about the blog summit until more than a week later.)
By the way, if Chad wants to use any of these photos for the famous caption contest, they are all fair game.
The Sorensen Institute's Sean O'Brien opens the conference on Friday afternoon
Virginia Attorney General Bob "Landslide" McDonnell
Robert Holsworth, a speed-dial entry on every Virginia political reporter's cell phone
Gubernatorial candidate Bill Bolling addresses the bloggers
A little help, please: Who is that on the left with Norfolk blogger Vivian Paige and Delegate Brian Moran?
Bill Bolling works the room
I enjoyed meeting you and other bloggers at the conference. The blogger on the left in that photo along with Brian Moran & me I believe is Bob Griendling from Commonwealth Commonsense.
ReplyDelete:). I really enjoyed the conferance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the flattering photo:-P.
If you think that was flattering, James, you should see the ones I chose not to use! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd Vivian: thanks for the information. The question now is, would it be ethical for me to replace the caption I wrote originally?
Rick -- I also loved the chance to get together with you and all the other bloggers. And I can help with your "mystery blogger." It's Bob Griendling, of Commonwealth Commonsense. See you at another one soon.
ReplyDeleteDon't tempt me! I can imagine some good captions for several of those pictures.
ReplyDelete:)
The question now is, would it be ethical for me to replace the caption I wrote originally?
ReplyDeleteHmm - how about just adding to the caption?
Who is that great-looking guy in the picture with Bill Bolling?
ReplyDeleteCharlie Burnham asks, "Who is that great-looking guy in the picture with Bill Bolling?"
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, he looks like Charlie Burnham.
Rick:
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed meeting you and our parking lot conversation. The temptation to suggest captions is real but sanity prevails.
Claire