Watching the Bloggers at conference

I attended a fringe event at the conference on the subject of blogging.

The panel was made up of Guido, Dale, Dizzy, Devils Kitchen and Nadine Dorries who talked about various aspects of blogging. It turned out to be not quite as feisty a fringe as was promised, but I guess it was a little too early for Guido to shine. I'm not even sure the bar was open.

Did raised a few points that really interested me. The first was that there seemed to be a general opinion that blogging can be more useful for local politicians than for national ones. I'd agree with this and I think it's a shame that there's not more Councillors trying to disseminate information in this way.

Nadine suggested that the idea of her blogging was not popular with the whips office. I found this greatly disappointing. I know that it is important for a party to control message as tightly as it can, but it's bonkers to try and prevent blogging incase you say something you're not supposed to. She's no more likely to say something she should as if she was out canvassing or being interviewed on the telly. In fact - probably less likely to as you can carefully prepare material before you post it.

Lastly there was the concept of success, and what makes a blog successful. It's very easy to compare blogs to Dale et al. and believe that's the kind of thing you're trying to create, but it's not. A blog could be as simple as trying to connect with 5 decision or policy makers. It could be about providing information for the media. In my case, it's about trying to connect with the voters in the ward.

Which is why I'm so pleased with this blog. In the first month I had 100 unique viewers. Nothing in comparison to guidos >20k, but excellent in terms of what I'm trying to do.