6/4 Evening: Making Money

Matt Thompson: "payment may not always be monetary."

Definitely not what most folks in the room wanted to hear! But as Arnie commented to me, it's like health care: outcomes are measured in much more than money. You don't go to the doctor based on how much money his prescription or treatment will help you make; you go for your health. We don't blog just to make a million bucks (though don't let me stop you from making a donation!). We blog to contribute a valuable service to our communities: telling stories, building social capital, weaving a thicker social tapestry.

Blogging for profit may cause us to fall victim to the GDP Fallacy: making money doesn't mean we're succeeding. Think of your community blog like Cheers. Remember Sam? He didn't value that bar for the money he was making. He valued it for the people, the community. Of course, he wasn't running the bar as a charity; he had to pay the rent. But when Sam closed the show saying, "I'm the luckiest [s.o.b.] in the world," he wasn't thinking of his bank balance.

We do need to pay the bills, and a number of folks at JTM convened sessions on business models, insurance, and other pocketbook issues. Alas, I can't tell you much about them. I told myself I was going to this conference to learn how others have found ways to turn their online efforts into financially sustainable enterprises, but every time I saw such a discussion posted, I saw another session on Democracy 2.0 or government transparency, and I forgot all about business. Silly me—always putting the commonwealth ahead of financial wealth. ;-)

Paying the bills is nice. We can only do so much for free or for love. But even if we start breaking even or better, we always need to build social capital, not just the capital in our bank accounts.

6/4/ Circle: Notes Big and Small

In this big circle session, we did the usual introductions, plus an experiment in which we had to come up with a brief headline -- a "Twitter" -- to desccribe what we hoped to get from the conference. My headline: "Madville Times raids best minds in country, takes brilliant ideas home to make South Dakota smarter, freer, funner." Bit long for a headline, but maybe I can use that last part for my next (first!) book.

I described myself as geocentric, thinking geography, then realized the better word for my online efforts (and others) is topocentric, centered on place. All this talk about dispersed online communities is interesting, but it would make Wendell Berry nervous. Place, literal place, matters.

Olivia Ma from YouTube informs us that YouTube has created a new account labelled reporter.

Bob Cox from New York observes that four years ago, no one at the Journalism That Matters gathering was talking about making money. He sees here a sign that the community journalism scene is becoming more stable: we're figuring out what we want to do and now can spend time figuring out how to make a living from it.

Tish Grier of Placeblogger says we are the stewards of the communities we create.

Michelle Ferrier fires off a couple great comments:

• her headline: "the nexus of folklore and the future." Folklore! The stories, the knowledge, the shared language and narrative that make our memory collective!
  
• "social capital is the infrastructure that allows for democracy" -- placeblogging builds social capital! It builds connections along which democratic discourse and collaboration can flow.