All I really wanted to do this morning was sleep, but still I managed to haul my ass out of bed in time for Horst and I to go along to BlogWalk3.0, a smallish meet up for bloggers interesting in talking about networking in the blogosphere and related topic.
It was fab.
Met a whole bunch of cool people, had some great conversations and even had some realisations about how and why I do what I do. For example, take that blogroll on the left there. The people that are starred are people I have met. Some of them I count to be good friends. Some were friends before I started blogging, some are newly acquired. Some are people that I met at a meet up and haven't spoken to since. The unstarred links are people whose blogs I read because they are interesting, online friends I've not met in person, or blogs that I don't read so much anymore but for which I don't want to lose the link. Bit of a mishmash, really.
We had a long conversation about qualifying blogrolls, and to what extent people cateogorize (or not!) their links, and what purpose blogrolls serve – information cache or indication of status? Not sure I can say what the conclusion was, or if there was one, but it made me rethink how I link to people and why I feel it is important for me to use those little stars.
The morning was spent mainly talking in small groups around this idea of blogs as networking tools, then we went and terrorised a local restaurant before walking again around Vienna during the afternoon. Had a whole bunch over excellent chats with people, about DRM, the experience of having your business collapse, the difference between Vienna and London, and a bunch of other stuff. Way cool.
Over on Ad++ Adalbert has posted some photos (including at least one of me) as well as a few more details of the day and a sound file of me spouting off about something. Unusually for me, not only did I talk in the small conversations, I also participated considerably in the large group discussion at the end of the day. I usually keep my mouth shut in those circumstances, and can even be really quite shy in large groups, but I felt very comfortable with the atmosphere within the group and happy to air my thoughts.
Congratulations to Ton, Lilia and Sebastian for organising such a great day, and thanks to everyone else for such enjoyable conversations. More BlogWalk stuff links over at the BlogWalk Topic Exhange page.
Well, just a quick post whilst I wait for the football match to be over. (Last I heard it was 1-0 Greece but that was half an hour ago.) I warn you now that I'm on a Mac and this kezboard is weird so I keep having to search for keys. The z is where the y should be! Anyway…
The flight over yesterday (was it really only yesterday?) was fine, if a little bumpy at times. I got to the airport at 8.20am, saw the size of the queue for check-in and decided to use the automated kiosks insteads. Checked myself in with my e-ticket, got my baggage checked in and was through security within 10 mins, giving me two hours twenty to sample the delights of hang about in Heathrow's Terminal 4. I now fully understand why Joi spends so much of his time in airports on IRC. If only I had had a GPRS phone with me or some such.
Flight was nothing extraordinary, apart from the fact that as I was sitting there watching the clouds go by I heard one of the stewards ask if a Mr Lee Bryant could raise his hand if onboard. 'Hmm,' thought I. 'I doubt very much if there are two Lee Bryants going to Vienna right now, and I know that there is a Lee Bryant talking at BlogTalk… must be the same guy.'
Lee and I have a mutual friend who had already given me Lee's contact details because he's doing interesting things with knowledge management that I wanted to get a bit more into. I hadn't had the time to contact him though.
So, much to the amusement of the steward, I asked him to check which seat Lee was in, and then went and introduced myself. Well, it was just too much of a good opportunity to miss out on.
Unfortunately, Lee's not a good flyer so much of our conversation involved him gripping the seat and looking tense. It was, admittedly, quite turbulent, but I am a bit of a masochist and I quite enjoyed it.
Once we'd landed, the colour returned to Lee's face, and we met up with Horst and caught the train into Vienna.
Vienna is gorgeous. I am in love. The city centre is not only full of the most amazing buildings, but also almost completely devoid of cars. Although there are large pedestrian areas, apparently the lack of cars has been achieved through the creation of a convoluted and impenetrable one-way system which takes drivers in circles and makes driving into the city a complete waste of time. Job well done, I say.
Met up with Steph and Horst took us on a guided tour of Vienna. Saw huge amounts of stuff – too much to remember!
Spent the evening freezing our butts off at an open air cinema, watching Citizen Kane. Fun, if cold.
