The Berkman Blogger’s Group works to support Blogging in general and the Harvard
Blogging
community in particular, in the following four areas: 1) Support of the Blogging
Community through
help list maintenance and user support, 2) Proselytizing and spreading the word
about Blogging,
through workshops, help sites, conference presentations, interviews, and in our
own blogs 3)
Development of new tools and uses for blogs, including supporting, collaborating
on and publicizing
worthwhile projects and research, as well as organizing conferences, colloquia
and courses, and 4)
Enjoyment of the company of each other, and other bloggers, through our weekly
meetings, culinary
meet-ups, road trips and seasonal social gatherings.

Dear gang of fourteen (or so),

This is a draft of a brief statement of purpose, suitable for placement on the
Thursdaymeeting page
without taking up much real estate, which I feel describes the four key areas in
which we can contribute
to the “movement” and the “community” without becoming an official organization
with officers, etc,
which I think we all agree would be anathema to the spirit of the whole thing.

Without becoming depressingly long-winded let me briefly elaborate on this
sketch with some specific
examples:

1) Support, is mostly what Wendy is doing now supporting the distribution list
and answering email
about problems. But don’t forget that this was one of the original purposes of
the group, and I, for
one, came to my first meeting because I had newbie questions I wanted answers
to. This area also
includes the help and newbie pages on the server, which need to be strengthened
and expanded.

2) Proselytizing includes projects like Blogging 101, our efforts to get
politicians to blog, and future
efforts (once we have server support for a wider community) to broaden the
breadth and depth of the
Harvard blogging community.

3) Development is an important category because it includes support for stuff
like Frassle, Rick’s open-
source novel, various members and colleagues who are doing research projects to
explore and describe
the blogosphere, such as the ongoing effort to test out other blogging platforms
and the data that
effort produces, as well as being the natural home for BloggerCon IV, which we
should start thinking
about for the Spring.

4) We all know deep down that our collective lack of a social life is the real
reason we all get together
every Thursday, find time in our busy lives for the lively discussion and group
therapy. However, it is
the other stuff that differentiates us from the Meetups and other purely social
events.

This is just a proposal and I am not 100% satisfied with the wording or the
level of specificity.
Suggestions welcome.

Michael