Back in the Saddle Again

I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time — the rapid pace of Penton’s growth in emedia has kept me incredibly busy and while it’s energizing, fun, and always different, when I go home at night it’s been hard to get back in front of a computer and work some more on the web for personal projects like this blog.

But I have found new inspiration and energy and am more committed than ever now to keep my blog updated. As you can see, I’ve relaunched eMedia Strategist and moved my blog over to a true blogging package — WordPress. I also will be launching an eMedia Wiki very soon that anyone can contribute to. My new inspiration for writing in my blog is actually an old one. I love online communities and community-submitted content.

Community is such an over-used term with publishers. Ask 20 people in media to define online community and they’ll give you 20 different answers. For me, I define community as a place where diverse voices can come together and share information. This can take the form of discussion forums, blogs where people can respond with comments, wikis where everyone can contribute and edit content, realtime chat sessions, etc. — basically anywhere that I can communicate with others who are interested in the same things that I am. And it has to be two-way communication … not just one-way authoritative communication.

I’ll have a lot more on community in future posts as I believe it truly represents the future of online publishing — and what GOOD online publishers are already doing