collisionbend.com

Man, has this been a busy week, and it’s only half-over!

On Monday, I had an excellent job interview with an agency in town. The interview went so well, in fact (and I was so impressed by the firm), that I received a truly nice job offer.

Of course, I accepted.

My bride and I are elated.

When I can publicly divulge the information, I shall, but not until then. Suffice it to say that I am entering a full-time web development job for a high-powered firm right here in Cleveland, both parties are excited, and that’s that.

I am not subjugating my writing to my new job; rather, I am respecting it: I have, however, signed a confidentiality agreement and I want to clarify my areas of comment before I run even the slightest risk of violating the agreement. Therefore, the best policy is to keep mum on the subject and release it when I am crystal clear on what’s what.

This evening I attended the Cleveland Weblogger Meetup. We were joined by the local Podcasters, and both groups, combined with guests, looked to be close to 50 souls (UPDATE: in the photo posted at Brewed Fresh Daily, I count 31; George took the photo, which makes 32 — still a nice turnout). We were forced to meet upstairs (we met at the Rock Bottom Brewery in the Flats). George Nemeth should post has posted the photos on BFD soon…

Denise Polverine from cleveland.com attended, and even bought a few pitchers of beer, which I think may have loosened the conversation somewhat. I know I was a little vocal about cleveland.com’s design and the difficulty of using the site, but I also presented an alternative angle or two on how she could integrate more blogger content into cleveland.com.

One thing is for certain: Denise has a great idea — although one that might be like herding cats — and she may have to think “outside the box” to get it accomplished. It is an idea that can help “unite” a group of mavericks to write for the greater good of Greater Cleveland, which would be a Good Thing (my apologies to Martha Stewart).

Not that we need to unite the local bloggers, as I think the local bloggers wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — subjugate their material for her sake, but we could use a common clearinghouse for ideas and issues, as well as a site where all of us can be listed and have input. A sort of “Best of the Web,” like the New York Times column… and… the more I think about it… sort of like gothamist.com, which was one of my suggestions (for cleveland.com to link up with the gothamist.com network for their guidelines). This might be the best method of getting cleveland.com linked into the rest of our sites to help create some extra content.

Of course, then, there’s the old issue of “what’s in it for me?” from the bloggers. My suggestion to that was with a clearinghouse of local bloggers, she chould consider it a daily palette of freelance submissions from which she could choose to add content to cleveland.com and renumerate on a case-by-case basis. A blogger could write a post and then Denise could offer payment to include that post on cleveland.com; else, she could quote the post and cite it in the proper way if the blogger declined; else, if she deemed the post as unusable, she could do nothing. Seems fair to me.

So ends my thoughts on tonight’s (well, okay, last night’s) meetup.

The rest of my week looks like this: my last three night shifts Thursday, Friday and Saturday; Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off, with my free time spent on my kitchen floor; Tuesday evening my Digital Imaging (Photoshop) class resumes; and Wednesday, to quote Dick Vitale, is “New Job City, Baybeee!!”

Woo-Hoo!!

2 Comments

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  by Organic Mechanic 17 Mar 2005 at 11:37 am

  March Blogger Meetup: Blogger Small Group Overview, Afterthoughts, A Panda Driving a Car and Errantry
  The combined blogger/podcasting meetup last night was the best yet. There were so many people there that we broke up into three small groups: one for podcasters, one for bloggers and one for people to discuss with Denise Polverine [who…

• by Steve FitzGerald 19 Mar 2005 at 12:44 am

  

  Hey, congrats again on getting the new gig! I owe you a beer at the next blogger meetup, April 20th, I think. It should be interesting to see where cleveland.com goes with its relationship with our blogging community. I sensed that Denise is open-minded to the ideas and concerns that were expressed in our corner of the room… I’m hopeful her higher-ups give her the resources or autonomy to go in the best possible direction… maybe even trailblaze a bit. Time’ll tell.