Blogger to Blogger Discussions – Volunteers Needed

Update: Since this was posted, we had plenty of volunteers and have filled our moderator positions:

• How Bloggers Can Influence the Wine World: Michael Wangbickler and Fred Swan
• Are We Wine Writers, Wine Bloggers, or Both?: Tom Wark
• Blogging Workshops: Pamela Heiligenthal, Bill Eyer, Mike Veseth, Cindy Rynning, Debbie Gioquindo, and Amy Gross
  

Thanks to all our volunteers and see below for details on the blogger-to-blogger sessions.

On Saturday morning at the 2012 Wine Bloggers Conference, we will have three “blogger-to-blogger discussions” going on at the same time. We could use your help.

We first did something similar at the very first Wine Bloggers Conference, way back in 2008, when we included a two-hour “unconference”. At an unconference, topics are presented and led by participants and people have the freedom to walk around and sit in on whichever discussion they choose. It worked pretty well and we have tried something similar most years since.

This past year in Virginia, we morphed from an unconference to having three specific discussions, each with designated moderators (who are not presenters), and it seemed to work pretty well. In fact, the only complaint was we didn’t provide enough time. So for 2012, we are increasing the time to 75 minutes and moving the discussions to Saturday morning, prime time at the conference.

The three topics are:

• How Bloggers Can Influence the Wine World: What can wine bloggers do individually to have more impact on the world of wine? Should bloggers attempt to influence the wine world by all focusing on one topic at a time, as Eric Asimov suggested in 2011?
• Are We Wine Writers, Wine Bloggers, or Both? What is a writer? What is a wine writer? Is a person writing about wine using a blog platform a blogger, a wine writer or both? Is payment the only difference between professional wine writers and wine bloggers? Join your fellow wine bloggers to discuss in depth the current thinking on the nature of wine writing, where bloggers fit into that category, and the degree to which wine blogging has changed the overall arena of wine writing. Moderated by Tom Wark of Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog.
• Wine Blogging Workshops: Sit at a table with a group of bloggers, including at least one experienced one, who will view, critique, and make suggestions on your blog. If you are looking for hands-on (or eyes-on) advice for your blog, this is the time and place to get it.

As you can see from the above, only the second discussion already has a moderator. The third discussion actually has one experienced blogger moderator (Pamela Heiligenthal from Enobytes) but we need four more. Additionally, we need two moderators for the discussion on How Bloggers Can Influence the Wine World.

If you are interested to volunteer as a moderator and will be attending the conference, please leave a comment on this blog or email allan@zephyradventures.com.