Scoble talk in words and pictures

[ Robert at SJSU! more pictures here! ]

When Robert Scoble comes to visit, go! If you are busy, change your plans so you are not busy (if you can.) Go not just to see Robert. Go to see the people who go to see Robert! I met Buzz and Renee thanks to Robert. Dori I met at OSXCON, then she showed up at a Scoble Geek Dinner. Dori and I connected at OSXCON on cats, (we both have cats named Pixel: [ Hers ] [ Mine ].)

I have met other great people too. Tantek, Mike, Tom, Steve Gillmor and many more. Scoble visits are a great place to meet folks, network, get new ideas and learn new things.

Each time I go to a Geek Dinner it results in a leap for me of knowledge, thought and ideas.

I think one of the neatest things about this medium, (and events and the folks who do this) is not only can you have a conversation when you all blog but conversations trigger other conversations that lead to new ideas and new connections and it all happens and gets recorded and is serarchable and creates data to be manipulated, stored, rearranged and explored in ways not imagined as the information is being created. I love it.

Also, I have thought a lot about Robert's post about my post and, yes Bob is right. You have to consider there are always limits and we all have to decide what those limits are and pay the consequences if we are wrong. Yes, you have to blog smart! If I write a story revealing personal information about my own life that may be legally and ethically okay, but if I write about a person who is not a public figure and violate their privacy, it is not legally and ethically okay. Law and ethics always limit what I say. If I were to say something bad about my boss, I had better be prepared for consequences. Consequences like retribution happens! I admire those who are courageous enough to let their emotions show and be so human in an Internet that caches your content. Worse things can happen than getting fired, too. If I were a member of a corrupt union, and blogged about it, there could be even more dire consequences than blogging about my boss.

Any time you engage in a conversation with one or more person, even if you just use good old fashioned speech, you have to be smart. It is like the classic "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater," you have responsibility for what you say. If Mark Jen had said what he said to bunch of people in a bar after a bunch of beers, and one of the folks there had known his boss, the outcome may have been the same.

Never say never, but I obviously am not a corporate blogger. I work for the state at a university that I love, but if I just wanted to do an 8-hour day and collect my pay, I could. But, that just sounds so boring and I am having fun. But no, I do not have as much at stake as Robert or Mark. But then, neither will I ever have my own fan club! That's okay, perhaps my tombstone will someday say, here lay Steve Sloan, Scoble's former boss.

What a hoot!