Chicago, Blogwalk, and Bloggers as Starving Artists.
I just had an amazing weekend in Chicago. Dennis (the Dennis Kennedy Blog) Kennedy and I drove up together (while holding our combined law firm retreat) and beat the 18 inches of snow by about an hour. The purpose of our trip was to check out in person the Catalyst Ranch space where we are holding LexThink! Chicago and attend BlogWalk Chicago.
As excited as I was about LexThink before traveling to Chicago, after seeing Catalyst Ranch, I am even more enthused. Eva, the Catalyst Ranch owner showed us around, and words can’t describe how perfect the space fits our vision of LexThink.
The best part of the weekend, however, was BlogWalk Chicago. Dennis and I joined these amazing bloggers and visionaries for a day of free-ranging discussions using the same OpenSpace method we will be relying upon for LexThink. Here is the who’s who:
- Jack Vinson
- Lilia Efimova
- Jim McGee
- David Burn
- Steve Dembo
- AKMA
- Denham Grey
- Tom Sherman
- Al Delgado
- Stuart Henshall
- Mark Bernstein
- Shannon Clark
- Martin Geddes
- Phil Wolff
I’m still trying to collect my thoughts for a more detailed post, but one concept that really crystallized for me is that bloggers are the the new starving artists — we allow our passion for producing our product (the information in our blogs) to adversely impact our ability to rationally place a value upon it. In the room in Chicago, I was humbled to be in the company of big-thinking people who really “get” the way blogging can change the world. There must have been 500+ GREAT ideas thrown out by the collective. Many of the ideas could support a small business of ten employees for a year or more. Only a few of us, however, had made any money directly from blogging (and I’m not retiring anytime soon on my first Law.com revenue sharing check). What this means to me is that there is no better time to be a buyer of blogging talent — not for the blog per se, but for the incredible, inventive talented mind behind it (more on this later).