Accidental Society of Bloggers
A few weeks ago I was invited to present our broadband project at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference in Calgary, Alberta. The panel I sat on was the Broadband for Rural and Indigenous Communities workshop, and my presentation was titled: Tribal Culture: The Red-Spectrum in a Rainbow of Corporate Intentions
[you can download it here. The full presentation is BB/060]
This was my first time speaking in front of a global audience. I was amazed at the number of delegates from many parts of the world. The panel I was speaking on had delegates from Chinese Taipei, Australia, Canadian First Nations, Indonesia, and Thailand. Yes, I was nervous. I thougt for sure I would choke, but as the other panelists made their presentations I realized we all speak the same language when it comes to building sustainable economies. We all want a better future for our people, we all want to build out the most advanced telecommunication infrastructure, and we all realize that unless people can find a way to make technology important to them it becomes useless.
As I listened to their presentations, I jotted down some notes and decided to mention "the blog." Although I didn't go into detail, I did tell them that our tribal members found a new hobby and that we accidently became a society of bloggers. I explained that a tribal member who recently moved from the reservation set it up as a way to keep up with reservation news, and even the latest gossip. I also mentioned that many tribal members used it as a way to communicate with each other on issues they found important.
They were amazed that in a four month period of time the site averaged over 50,000 hits per month when we have a membership of less than 2,000. Although we all came from different walks of life, I could tell by the nodding heads and grins on their faces that they understood the blog is not so much about the technology, but for something more basic than that, and that is the need for basic human communication. As they jotted down their own notes I wondered to myself how much of an impact my presentation made, and further, how many would go home and start their own blogs?
[you can download it here. The full presentation is BB/060]
This was my first time speaking in front of a global audience. I was amazed at the number of delegates from many parts of the world. The panel I was speaking on had delegates from Chinese Taipei, Australia, Canadian First Nations, Indonesia, and Thailand. Yes, I was nervous. I thougt for sure I would choke, but as the other panelists made their presentations I realized we all speak the same language when it comes to building sustainable economies. We all want a better future for our people, we all want to build out the most advanced telecommunication infrastructure, and we all realize that unless people can find a way to make technology important to them it becomes useless.
As I listened to their presentations, I jotted down some notes and decided to mention "the blog." Although I didn't go into detail, I did tell them that our tribal members found a new hobby and that we accidently became a society of bloggers. I explained that a tribal member who recently moved from the reservation set it up as a way to keep up with reservation news, and even the latest gossip. I also mentioned that many tribal members used it as a way to communicate with each other on issues they found important.
They were amazed that in a four month period of time the site averaged over 50,000 hits per month when we have a membership of less than 2,000. Although we all came from different walks of life, I could tell by the nodding heads and grins on their faces that they understood the blog is not so much about the technology, but for something more basic than that, and that is the need for basic human communication. As they jotted down their own notes I wondered to myself how much of an impact my presentation made, and further, how many would go home and start their own blogs?
posted by Rezilla | 10:20 PM
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