Invitation to the Future

We're having a party, hope you can come.

If you are interested in blogging, journalism or any combination of the two, then the ConvergeSouth conference at N.C. A&T on Oct. 7 and 8 could be for you.

Friday is all about the confluence of journalism and the Web. Saturday is dedicated to the things that people are doing for themselves with their Web logs, stuff like video-blogging and podcasting and political activism and media criticism and cultural commentary. Admission is free, lunch is provided, space is limited. You can register for one or both days and find out more details at http://2005.convergesouth.com.

There also will be live music at several different downtown venues on Friday night, and headliner Alana Davis will perform at Solaris on Saturday night as part of the ConvergeSouth package. Those events are free for conference attendees and open at a small charge to the general public. The conference Web site has that info, too.

You know that "creative class" thing that Greensboro's economic development poohbahs keep telling us we need? This is it, homegrown and national caliber, minus that annoying class distinction and the consultant fees for Richard Florida. The theme of the blog conference is "Creativity on the Web for All People," and we are serious about both the subject and the predicate.

The idea for a conference was hatched last spring in a conference room at A&T. Among the instigators were Teresa Styles, the head of A&T's journalism program, and several others from the university; Sue Polinsky, the president of a local company called TechTriad who works with SynerG and other downtown power-brokers; News & Record editor John Robinson and editorial page editor Allen Johnson; local blogger Ben Hwang; and me. We fast-tracked the planning so the rapidly evolving Web wouldn't leave us behind and set about creating a conference that would go beyond the typical white male demographics that these things often attract.

The idea for Saturday was to make the sessions about creativity on the Web and to foster diversity by inviting session leaders who didn't all look and think the same. Each session will be run in the "un-conference" style pioneered by ur-blogger Dave Winer, wherein the distinction between leaders and audience is erased and everyone in the room is encouraged to participate in the conversation, as if it were a live-action Web log.

We also wanted a mix of imported and local talent to run the sessions, and we have been very fortunate in that regard. From points afar come polemicist and sometime cartoonist Michael Bowen, aka Cobb, who bills himself as "unalloyed, unscented & Black & Republican"; Jimmy Wales, founder of the online collaborative reference site Wikipedia; Duncan Black, a hugely popular liberal blogger who writes under the name Atrios; Hossein Derakhshan, better known by his Web handle Hoder, the father of the Persian-language blogging community and a free-speech pioneer in his native Iran; Amanda Congdon, the irrepressible host of the comic video-news blog Rocketboom; Tiffany Brown, author of BlackFeminism.org, who looks at blogging from what she calls an "outsider" perspective; and Winer, who continues to work on new blog-related technologies while writing his widely read Scripting News site.

Closer to home, we found magazine editor Mickey McLean, author of the Carolina Christian Conservative blog; Roch Smith Jr., founder of the alternative media site Greensboro101; City Councilwoman Sandy Carmany; Chapel Hill political activist Ruby Sinreich; and Herb Everett, an N&R technology analyst, blogger and podcasting expert.

The Friday journalism conference will be a bit more traditional in its panel-and-audience makeup but will have opportunities for real conversation, not to mention panelists that are worth hearing. On that list -- and I'm leaving out a lot of people -- are UNC journalism professor and author Phil Meyer, ground-breaking Web war reporter Kevin Sites, NYU professor and blogger Jay Rosen and many, many more.

None of this would be possible without the generous support of local foundations, including a lead gift from the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation and a sizable contribution of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, and help from companies including JP Financial, the News & Record and Symetri. No institution has done more than A&T, which is not only hosting the event and contributing all manner of resources, but also providing much of the talent and support.

ConvergeSouth should be an event that Greensboro can be proud of and one that we can enjoy. We're getting registrants from several states for both days, including numerous members of the press, who will be both participating in it and covering it. Y'all come, too.

Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.