Wilmington Bloggers Ride Again to the Beam Room

Wilmington Bloggers, an informal wide open learning and sharing group focused on personal and business blogging, has started up again thanks to Shannan Bowen of Star News Media. The first incarnation of this group fired up in the Fall of 2008 and met one Saturday morning each month at the former Connections Cafe on Racine. When Connections closed, so did we.

Now, thanks to Shannan and other enthusiasts from Star News Media, Wilmington Bloggers is back in town, meeting the second Tuesday of each month in the Beam Room at Front Street Brewery in downtown Wilmington, NC at 9 North Front Street.

There's no fixed agenda to the meetings other than checking out each others' blogs on the Beam Room's huge screen and sharing tips, techniques and cool stories. Expertise level ranges from some to none to a whole lot (so if you're thinking about blogging and have questions or already rock your blog and want to show it off - this is the place!).

In the photo below Si Cantwell, Star News columnist (and occasional rocker with his band "They're Only Mostly Dead"), Shannan Bowen, Star News reporter Shannan Bowen, and in the background Front Street Manager Charles Scott hook up a laptop to the big screen in preparation for the meeting.


Star News Intern and disability blogger David Morrison and reporter Shelby Sebens were also early arrivals.


Part of the group: Shannan, Si, Maria Cantwell ("They're Mostly Only Dead" videographer) and David.


Shelby, Amy McEachern Hodges (the TShirt and Jeans Mom) and Star News reporter Ana Riberio.


The next meeting of Wilmington Bloggers is April 13th from 5-7PM. See you there.

Wilmington Bloggers Looking for a New Name

Is blogging passe', surpassed by Twitter and other microblogging apps, or what's going on?

What utilities do you use to aggregate your uploads?

Do you or do you not follow celebrities on Twitter and who follows back?

How is the Star News continuing to evolve to utilitize social media in news generation?

Why won't the waitperson who resembles the Twitter world's first million follower Tweeter let us take his photo?

Is it really a good idea to scan high school photos and upload them on Facebook - what are the possible ramifications?

How do family members use social media together?

What happens when you intentionally send out a provocative or challenging Tweet?

Who is the area's (state's? nation's?) first social media reporter and why couldn't she make our meeting?

What should we call our group since we spend so little time talking about blogging and what were the possible names we rejected because of too-obvious innuendo (for example, we will not be calling ourselves the SM Club)? If you have more than one innuendo is it "innuenda" or "innuendi"?

These questions and more were addressed in Saturday's meeting of what's still called Wilmington Bloggers. Our group was smallish this month but accordingly the depth of content was, well, deep, especially involving power tools and methods for blogging, Twitter, and Facebook.

Those in attendance were (from left to right in the photo below, taken BTW by Reggie Shropshire's ever-patient daughter who just got all A's on her report card): Jim Ware of the Star News, Reggie Shropshire of Action Coach, David Morrison of the Star News, Bruce Brown of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty, Kirsty Piper of Talk, Inc., and Judy Royal of the Star News.

Our next meeting will be Saturday, May 16th at 10AM. We're going to have a contest that will be announced separately for re-naming our group with prizes and all kinds o' good stuff. We look forward to seeing you.

Wilmington Bloggers Ride Again! Oh, wait, I meant "Meet" Again

If you're in or within easy driving range of Wilmington, North Carolina today, come on over to Connections Cafe on Racine Drive. From 10AM till noonish we're going to have our fourth meeting of Wilmington Bloggers, a loosely organized organization of free spirited bloggers and bloggers-to-be.

Showup, Engage, Contribute, Share - wait, that sounds like Twitter! Well, it works at our Wilmington Blogger meetings, too. There's a usual cast of characters and we always have interesting first time visitors, too.

I'm declaring today Irony Day for this Wilmington Bloggers meeting. Bring a hard copy of today's Wilmington Star News Online www.starnewsonline.com and if you're lucky (and ask) Shannan Bowen might autograph it for you. Other Star News luminaries are likely to be there as well. So maybe we should have collector cards and give a prize if you collect the whole set!

Nah, I'm just funnin' about that (tho' Shannan did say she'd sign autographs), but seriously, we do welcome guests and the information sharing about blogging technigues and tricks is rampant.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Here's a map:


View Larger Map

No photos in THIS post - but lookout!

Shortly, I hope later today, I'm going to post a blog entry (or is it "enter a blog post"?) about last Saturday's North Brunswick Business Expo. Heads up, it will be long, and it will have a gazillion photos (well, actually 76, but that's still a lot). When you see it, if you don't want to read it . . . don't.

I asked folks on Twitter (follow me there if you'd like, at http://twitter.com/brucebrownnc) about blog posting etiguette and guidelines, asking specifically if there was a reasonable limit to the number of photos to put in one post. Most folks wrote back that 1 or 2 was the limit and one pretty knowledgeable guy also suggested I remember the 400-700 word rule - which I'd never heard of. One very successful blogger wrote "It's YOUR blog, do what you want." When I wrote back I was talking about 76 photos she suggested I try http://slide.com and use captions.

Well, I spent a few hours on slide.com (mostly spent away from the computer while it uploaded the photos) and then tried writing some captions.

Nope, doesn't happen. Whatever voice I have doesn't come through in that format.

So, gentle Blog readers, when I put up a post about the NBCC Business Expo - please feel free to bypass. Also feel free to comment.

Wilmington Bloggers Ride Again!

Well, we didn't actually ride anywhere, though two of us rode bicycles, one came in a SmartCar (see previous entry) and the rest of us came in regular (dumb?) cars to the second meeting of a loosely organized group called the Wilmington Bloggers. Following Wilmington Star News Executive Editor Robyn Tomlin's suggestion we met once again at The Connections Cafe on Racine Road in Wilmington. When we met the first time we had 17 folks in attendance, this time it was about 25. As you can see in the photo below, we had a good crowd on this early, chilly Saturday morning.


Our meetings are informal affairs in which we introduce ourselves and our blogs, share dreams and successes, and trade info on tools and techniques we use in our blogging. It's fun and informative. Our next meeting will be in January, date and time TBD.

Wilmington Sunday Riverwalk

What a great day today was. After spending all day yesterday at the Waterford Fall Festival, it was neat today to hang around the house and do some chores. Accomplished some serious garage cleaning. By mid afternooon, though, Marge, Pepper, and I were ready for a break. We hopped in the car (well, Marge and I entered the vehicle a bit more sedately) and drove downtown to see if we could find our new friend Justine Ferreri's shop at Chandler's Walk. Turned out we got there too late (Chandler's Walk closes at 4 on Sundays), but that didn't stop us from having a nice stroll on the riverwalk.

We're always amazed when we find the gorgeous Riverwalk uncrowded, which it often is on Sunday mornings and late afternoons. Pepper loves it, and immediately struck a pose, so below you'll find the obligatory "dog on Riverwalk photo".


Walking north we soon came to a fleet of good-sized boats docked in front of the condos that directly face the Cape Fear River (note the Cape Fear River Bridge in the background). There was some serious floatage tied up today, includind a newer 56 footer, a spiffy catamaran sailing vessel, and one that if I knew anything about boats (which I don't) I'd guess was a Chris Craft Connie, a long one. Still few other people in sight.


After walking for a while we decided to head home but on the way to the car (don't you love it you can park downtown for free all day Sunday) Pepper and Marge wanted to pose under the sign for the Cape Fear Serpentarium. I happily obliged, with the result below.

This was yet another nice day in lovely downtown Wilmington.

Art for the Masses - Nov. 22nd - Mark Your Calendar!

I was checking out my new friend and fellow Wilmington Bloggers colleague Ian's blog The Grove Project and saw an announcement for an event I know I don't want to miss - Art for the Masses .

If you want to buy art, support art, see a whole lot of original art, or if you even just know a guy named Art, you won't want to miss Art for the Masses on Saturday, November 22nd from 10AM to 5PM at 3501 Oleander Drive. [Bruce note - I'll betcha the artists would love it most if you bought something, but I know they'll appreciate you coming out in support of the arts community.]

Presented by Creative Wilmington, Art for the Masses will show the works of 200 regional artists, all priced at $250 or less. Artwork available in pottery, painting, fiber, mixed media, jewelry, photography, watercolor, wood, metalsmith, digital, collage, illustration, mosaic, screen printing, sculpture, printing, glass, drawing, and more.

Art for the Masses is sponsored by Hanover Center, WHQR 91.3 FM, Wilmington Star News, and Encore. There is a $3 donation requested at the door.

More information, contact:

Matthew Dols

mattdols@creativewilmington.com

910.619.9296

For a complete list of artists see my Ian's The Grove Project

Wilmington NC Bloggers In the Flesh!

Saturday morning at Connections Cafe on Racine in Wilmington, North Carolina, a scant score of area bloggers met for coffee, conversation, and shared convivial consciousness around social media. Called to meet IRL ("in real life" not in Ireland) by Star News Executive Editor Robyn Tomlin, the group crossed lines of gender, hue, age, physical ability, employment status, blogging experience, and consensual texting preferences.

In short, it was a hoot. Two and a half hours of sit down talking passed quickly and most hung in the whole time - fully half stayed after and chatted standing up - not sure everyone has left even now, 4 hours later, (actually, I think there's one guy who lives at Connections, but that's another story).

What did we talk about? Well . . . how about commercial versus personal uses of social media? We focused on Twitter, blogging, and Facebook but another eighty gazillion or so sites, services, gidgets or wadgits received at least quick mention. We also discussed online stalking and safety, the spirit and practice of giving, community versus national sites, and how news is gathered, handled, and presented in these days of instant communication everywhere by pretty much everyone.

We may meet again in a month or so - likely in the same location, but in the meantime agreed to tag our local-focused Twitter and blog entries with #ILM so they can be harvested or fed to a central site. News at 11 on where and how.