Donna posted yesterday about blogs and conversations.

It occurs to me that she has post more stuff about blogging and conversations: more meta
I posted a while back about Burke’s unending conversation.

There was also much talk at Collin’s place about conversation relative to Booth’s Rhetoric of Rhetoric and Listening Rhetoric.

All of this conversing on conversations leads me to think that blogs make visible the way our minds can wander in conversations. It is so hard to stay in the moment of the conversation and really listen to what others are saying without going down thinking trails of our own while the other person is talking.

Keri has been talking about reader response and Donna has mentioned reader reception. Admitting my stupidity here (I’m getting oh so good at that, but that, my friends, deserves a separate post), really, I don’t know what the difference is. Every time they bring it up, I think to myself, (see I’m busy thinking while they’re busy talking), what is the difference?
Blogging makes the nature of “real” conversations visible. Hmm…in addition to making “real” conversations visible, what else do virtual conversations make possible?

For an intellectual, blogging is an affective encounter. I mean, look at all the ideas that circulate and how everyone joins in when they feel moved to do so. Blog posts are conversation starters or continuers motivated by the ‘unending conversation’ in the blogosphere. Comments and links are affective energy that keep the conversation going.

Blogs as pedagogy. We’re all practicing, through this conversing and making visible, what we hope to inspire in others and in ourselves. It is an energy in the network…we, the ’small pieces loosely joined’ make the stuff up as we go. see Weinberger: The New Is (via Collin (who is busy hosting a great Friday symposium that I am so bumbed I can’t attend))

Today, I came across (via Evelyn Rodriguez, ItSeemsToMe, and the Naked Conversations blog) a title that is due out in January 2006: Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, by Robert Scoble, Shel Israel. I can’t link it up in Amazon or it messes up my RSS feed. Tom Peters wrote the forward.
The first paragraph of the editorial description reads:

According to these experts, blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers’ meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line.

I wonder how they define meaningful dialogue??
By the way, other titles on blogs and culture recommend at Amazon include:
# Blog!: How the World of Blogs And Bloggers Is Changing Our Culture by David Kline
# We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture by Editors of Perseus Publishing
ok, I have to stop now and shower, and grade papers, (not at the same time obviously), but I will set this on perk.
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