Seattle Blawgers Meetup Recap
A few years ago, SCU hosted a series of Bay Area Blawger gatherings. I’ve included some links at the bottom of this post. Our goal was to give legal bloggers a chance to meet each other in person and discuss topics of mutual interest. We had pretty good turnouts at most of the events, and I believe attendees had a good time.
I haven’t organized a Bay Area Blawgers event since 2009. First, my schedule has been busy. Second, and perhaps more importantly, blogging has changed a lot in the last couple of years. Many bloggers have moved some or all of their activity to other social media, like Twitter, which has sucked some of the air out of the blogosphere. A lot of early bloggers have turned over as part of the ordinary life cycle of blogging. And many new legal bloggers are law firm attorneys blogging for corporate interests and who may not even self-identify as BLOGGERS. So I’m not sure who would come if we held another Bay Area Blawgers gathering—or if anyone would come! If you have thoughts about the merits of another gathering, please email me. I’m willing to put something together if there’s enough interest.
Earlier this month, I had an excuse to visit Seattle for the first time in several years. See my Seattle photo album and video from Mt. Si. Among other benefits, it meant that I could finally meet my co-blogger Venkat in person for the first time. It’s odd that I had worked so closely with Venkat over the past 3 years but never met him in person. (I email Venkat more than I email any other person, even my wife). So having a chance to spend time with him was a real plus.
As part of my Seattle visit, Venkat and Josh King of Avvo helped organize a gathering of Seattle Blawgers. The group photo. I believe this group had gotten together in the past. About 20 blawgers showed up at Avvo’s palatial subleased space in downtown Seattle to shoot the breeze and compare notes. Unlike the SCU blawgers events, there wasn’t any structured discussion, but I think mostly people just welcomed the opportunity to chat face-to-face and enjoy someone else’s food and libations. Many thanks to Josh King and Mark Britton of Avvo for sponsoring the event, to Venkat for doing some of the marketing (see the Tweetup registration), and to everyone who showed up for a great time!
Other Recaps of the Seattle Blawgers Gathering
* Venkat (with another photo!)
* William Carleton (and a different photo!)
Past Coverage of Bay Area Blawgers Activity
* Announcements of Bay Area Blawgers 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0.
* Recaps of the first, third and fourth gatherings. Beth Grimm has written an interesting meta-recap.
* Photos from the second and third gatherings.
* List of possible issues for a blawgers’ discussion.
* Census of Bay Area Blawgers.