Category Archives: Culture: new media

What makes a good blogger

Chris Walton has decided to end his blog Philocrites, and his decision got me thinking about what makes a good Unitarian Universalist blogger.

Until a year or so ago, when Chris drastically reduced the frequency of his posts, Philocrites was the most authoritative and influential Unitarian Universalist blog. Part of the authority and influence of Philocrites was due to its longevity; Chris began writing it in 2002, one of the earliest Unitarian Universalist bloggers, and kept on writing it after many of the other early bloggers dropped their blogs. Yet longevity cannot fully explain the authority and influence of Philocrites; there are other Unitarian Universalist blogs that are nearly as old as Philocrites, but none of them has filled that central role in the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere.

Chris’s solid writing contributed more to the authority and influence of Philocrites. In addition, Chris is also a good editor, and an editor who can successfully edit himself. Chris uses the plain style: his prose is straightforward, not flowery, designed to communicate what he has to say as clearly as possible. As an editor, Chris edited himself for clarity: his posts contained little or no extraneous verbiage and very few typographical errors or other distractions. I was especially grateful for his careful self-editing: very few self-edited blogs (in or out of the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere) live up to such high standards.

For me, good writing also requires good thinking. Here again, Chris excels. He remains one of the more interesting Unitarian Universalist thinkers. He is not an academic, but he is familiar with the academic literature of liberal religion. He is not ordained, but he has a better knowledge of practical theology than many ordained ministers. He was able to connect religion to other areas of life, especially politics. Even when I didn’t agree with Chris, what he wrote at Philocrites consistently helped me to think more carefully, and often more clearly. I wish liberal religion had more public intellectuals like Chris:– not specialists or academics, but intellectual generalists who are able to write intelligently about a wide range of topics.

Chris also exhibited good judgment. There are plenty of Unitarian Universalist bloggers who write well and think well, but do not exhibit the sure and quick judgment that we got in Philocrites. Judgment is a part of being a public intellectual. It is not enough to be smart; it is not enough to write well; a public intellectual must also have good judgment and be willing to make judgments about the current state of things.

Philocrites had good writing, good editing, good thinking, and good judgment; Chris, in his own small way, was (and is) a public intellectual. Thus Philocrites remains one of the few Unitarian Universalist blogs that non-Unitarian Universalists bothered to read. I hope Chris will continue to develop as a public intellectual, and I hope he will seek out a wider audience, beyond the narrow and parochial world of Unitarian Universalism.

Is there a blog that can fill the place of Philocrites? Not right now. The Unitarian Universalist blogosphere, loosely construed, continues to be a lively place: Peter Bowden’s infectious excitement about growth; the quiet musing of Carrots and Ginger; the Chalice Chick cabal; the sometimes manic and telegraphic posts of Will Shetterly (though I’m not sure Will still thinks of himself as a Unitarian Universalist); and many, many others I take delight in reading. But at the moment, I do not see a Unitarian Universalist blogger who combines good writing, good editing, good thinking, and good judgment with the desire and ability to become a public intellectual grounded in Unitarian Universalism.

Not that I aspire to such a thing, and I suspect most Unitarian Uniersalists bloggers are like me in this respect — we are quite happy doing what we do for our somewhat narrow intended audience. I just wish someone else would come along to fill that role of public intellectual within the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere.

The year of the e-reader? Probably not.

Will this, finally, be the year when e-readers take off? I don’t think so — yet there are two interesting developments worth paying attention to.

First, I’m quite interested in the prototype e-reader about to be released by Silicon Valley start-up Plastic Logic. Not only does it have many of the features I’ve been longing for, on 6 December 2009, the U.K. Independent reported that Plastic Logic’s “Que” e-reader may help the struggling newspaper industry:

“The Que, an A4 sheet of plastic no heavier than a magazine, is powered by electronic circuitry using plastic as a base rather than traditional silicone. This makes for a much lighter, more robust product that is also easier to make than other e-readers…. The screen displays newspapers and magazines in the same format as on the [printed paper] page…. Many analysts believe the Que could benefit the struggling newspaper industry as it strives to find ways of charging for content.” [But the authoritative blog Media Bistro disagrees, saying e-readers will not save newspapers.]

This video shows a prototype of the Que, and this quick look is almost enough to make me excited. But one problem is already obvious:– Plastic Logic refuses to mention price and they’re aiming it at “business users,” which means the Que will probably be too expensive for ordinary mortals like me. However, they supposedly plan to mass-market the Que through Barnes and Noble stores, meaning that they may eventually be aiming for a more reasonable price.

Second, Sony just released its latest and best e-reader, the PRS 900 “Daily Edition.” Continue reading →

2009 in review: The year in Unitarian Universalist blogs

Here are four things Unitarian Universalist (UU) blogosphere this past year

1. The slow disappearance of Philocrites Philocrites, once the most influential UU blog, has practically ceased publication. At the beginning of the year, Chris Walton, the author of Philocrites, was posting about once a week, but he has not posted anything since 17 July 2009. Chris is still the editor of UU World (both the print magazine and the related Web site), and I’m glad he’s doing that. But I miss the personal voice of his blog, along with his superb reportorial and intellectual skills. We’re still waiting for another blog to fill that authoritative role Philocrites once had in the UU blogosphere.

2. Peacebang moves to Facebook Peacebang, another prominent UU blogger who prefers to remain anonymous, announced on 3 December 2009 that henceforth she would be ”  ‘mini-blogging’ on FaceBook.” If you have a Facebook account, you can “become a fan” of her page. (Her non-UU blog, Beauty Tips for Ministers, remains publicly accessible on the Web.) Among UU bloggers, Peacebang was one of the best writers, and I miss having her unique voice publicly accessible to anyone, even people without a Facebook account.

3. Rate of growth slowing in UU blogosphere? UUpdater, the administrator of the UU blog aggregator site UUpdates [pron. “oop-dates”] is now reporting 414 UU blogs. A year ago, UUpdates had something like something like 350 UU blogs. In February of 2005, when I started this blog, there were a little over 40 UU blogs, and the growth curve was very steep for about 3 years thereafter — but now it appears to be leveling off. Are the various social media sites drawing writers away from blogging? Or have we simply found all the Unitarian Universalists who want to blog about liberal religion?

4. Kudos to prolific and long-term bloggers I continue to be astounded by two long-term, prolific UU bloggers. Rev. Scott Wells has been blogging at Boy in the Bands since May, 2003 — and not only does he post at least once a day (sometimes more often), he’s literate, knowledgeable, and fun to read. Chalicechick has been blogging for exactly five years tomorrow, but before that was acknowledged as the doyenne of the UU forum at Beliefnet — she doesn’t post on her blog as often as does Scott, but she has an active Twitter feed, and both blog and Twitter dispense her trademark mix of snark, heart, and good writing.

Though he’s not a blogger per se, I continue to be astounded by the work of UUpdater, mentioned above. His blog aggregator gets an enormous amount of traffic, and I hate to think what he pays for Web hosting. Yet year after year, UUpdater writes code, deals with maintenance issues, and delivers a feed of UU blogs that I absolutely depend on — all out of the goodness of his heart. He gets too little credit for his work — so send him email telling him how much you love what he does.

5. Help from a professional As I said last year, I feel the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere is simply too big for one person to comprehend any more. This is a good thing — the more we talk about our liberal religion, the better I like it. But that means it’s impossible for me to keep up with all these UU bloggers any more. Thank goodness for the bloggers at The Interdependent Web blog, part of the uuworld.org Web site — they must read an enormous number of UU blogs each week, finds the best posts, and then they summarize and link to them. I’m glad the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has paid staffers Chris Walton, Kenneth Sutton, and Shelby Meyerhof working The Interdependent Web — another reason to make sure your congregation pays its fair share to the UUA.

2009 in review: Trends and possibilities I’ll be watching in 2010

As the new year approaches, here are some trends and possibilities that I think may have an effect on liberal religious organizations:

  • Obviously, I’ll be watching the 2010 national census carefully. We won’t be getting real results from the census for a while; nevertheless, I’ll be watching the news about the changing demographics of the United States. How multicultural are we now, and how big is the disparity between the people in our congregations, and the wider population? Where are the population growth areas, and where is population declining?
  • I’ll be paying close attention to the economic news; in particular, I’ll be watching the unemployment figures and the level of charitable giving. In tandem with the economic news, I will be watching to see how many local congregations do one or more of the following: cut total staff; move to part-time ministry or eliminate paid ministry; reduce or eliminate paid religious educator positions. I’d love to be able to know how much maintenance will be deferred, as local congregations delay necessary expenditures on their physical plants, thus forcing future generations to deal with exponentially increasing problems. Finally, I’ll be looking for success stories, congregations that manage to improve their financial position — and trying to figure out how they do it.
  • I’ll be looking at the numbers of children both nationally and locally. Birth rates were predicted to go down last year due to the economic situation, but we’re still in the middle of a baby boomlet: there are large numbers of babies and young children in the U.S. right now. At the Palo Alto church we’re seeing a small uptick in average Sunday school attendance this fall. I’ll be watching to see if other local congregations manage to attract larger numbers of children — and again, trying to figure out how they do it.
  • Thanks to Terry here in the Palo Alto church, I’ve been learning about ISO 9000 (Wikipedia has a short introduction to this set of standards). This is a set of standards for quality management: ideally, ISO 9000 provides ways to monitor processes and procedures in an organization, checking actual outcomes against desired results. Terry assures me that ISO 9000 standards have been usefully applied to nonprofits; she is currently working on implementing some ISO 9000 principles at our church. I don’t foresee local congregations seeking out ISO 9000 certification (although it’s an interesting possibility for denomination headquarters), but I do think we can learn from the principles behind the standards.
  • I’ll be paying close attention to new and existing social media, and to the ways nonprofits and churches use social media. Along with that, I’ll be watching to see if there are changes in social interactions as more and more people try out new social media. Will the tyranny of email finally be broken? — and will it simply be replaced with a new tyranny, e.g., the tyranny of Facebook?

I’ll continue this list in a later post….

Random stupid thoughts arise at odd moments

At tonight’s candlelight services, Amy, our parish minister, did the reading from the second chapter of the gospel of Luke. By the time the second service came around, my concentration was slipping a little.

“And it came to pass in those days,” said Amy, “that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be texted.”

Oh, I thought to myself, great idea. Caesar could just text everyone in the Roman Empire to let them know that they had to go….

“And all went to be taxed,” said Amy, “every one into his own city.”

Taxed, I thought to myself, not texted; Caesar Augustus did not have a Twitter feed in 4 B.C.E.

Another new (UU) blog

Ken Mattsson is now writing at The Spirit/Work Connection. Great title for a blog, and I like his first few posts: Ken’s a career counselor (this new blog is connected with his professional practice), and he gives these nice little snippets of advice and counsel, along with some good questions to reflect on. Ken’s a member of First Parish (Unitarian Universalist) in Cambridge.

New UU blog

Amy Zucker Morgenstern, the parish minister here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, has started a new blog called Sermons in Stones. Amy is a long-time forum moderator and blogger in other (non Unitarian Universalist) settings, and she has finally decided to come play in the UU blogging sandbox. Amy, it’s a little different here in the UU blogging sandbox — there’s no throwing sand in this sandbox unless you can blame it on someone else, or at least do it without getting caught.

Petty writers are not to be despised

Samuel Johnson, that 18th century English writer better known today by his reputation rather than by his works, published The Rambler, a twice-weekly periodical, from 1750 to 1752. I think of The Rambler as a sort of 18th century blog: Johnson took on subjects that others had already written about, expressed firm opinions that had been heard before, and often wrote about matters that no one would care about a year later.

In the issue from 6 August 1751 (no. 145), Johnson apologized for those writers who write for ephemeral periodicals. “These papers of the day, the Ephemera of learning, have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life, than more pompous and durable volumes,” said Johnson. We have little need to know what happened in ancient kingdoms, about which we expect little or nothing; we have a real need to know about events that shape our lives today. “If it be pleasing to hear of the preferment and dismission of statesmen, the birth of heirs, and the marriage of beauties,” he says, “the humble author of journals and gazettes must be considered as a liberal dispenser of beneficial knowledge.” And so we should not despise such petty writers, even though what they write will be forgotten tomorrow.

Today’s petty writers can be found on the Internet. You can read blogs about cats who are trying to lose weight. You can read innumerable blogs about babies, reporting when baby gets its first tooth, when baby takes its first step, when baby vomits for the first time. You can read a seemingly infinite number of political blogs which tend to report on what other political blogs have said, often using vituperative language and relying on ad hominem attacks as their primary rhetorical strategy. I can enjoy reading blogs about overweight cats. I don’t mind reading blogs about babies that I know. I won’t read political blogs myself, but I can understand why people are fascinated by them. I’d be willing to call blogs generous dispensers of mildly beneficial knowledge, if I can qualify that by adding that they can be too generous in their dispensing. And if I think of Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media as micro-blogging, then these newer social media are even more generous in dispensing their ephemeral writings. In the last half minute, dozens of petty writers have been posting such ephemera statements as “Sad story at fort hood. God save the world.” and “grey’s anatomy, you make me cry everytime. and i dont cry over television shows!” to Twitter.

What would Samuel Johnson make of blogs and Twitter? Would he have despised the petty writer who just wrote “i’m saying doe, if Britney can have 100million$ music career basically doing what kim just did. why cant kim?? lol” in a tweet to Twitter? Or would Johnson have found some fleeting value even in that? If I’m honest with myself I often find such ephemera to be more vigorously written and more entertaining (in the short run, at least) than Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel. And I don’t even know who “kim” is.