Sunday, June 22, 2008
Making the Wires
A brief account of our little blogging fuss has made the national wires, and it looks like yours truly is featured in some Sunday papers (or at least Sunday web sites)
If you are familiar with what actually happened, then it's interesting to read this shortened version. I'm a bit worried about what other elected officials and future elected officials who might glance at the story will 'take home' from this brief item. This whole thing started with the complaints of just two citizens who at least on the surface simply seemed unfamiliar with how many people use computers these days (AND who, I hasten to add, were also correct in some of their criticism).
It would be a shame if those few comments led to a chain of events that somehow discourages elected officials, in even the slightest way, from using the Internet to communicate with other citizens.
It's incredibly important for elected officials to share, and especially exchange, information with our constituents.
Of course, the story first came out Saturday morning in the local daily. It sure felt odd to have my face on the front page of the paper on the morning of SummerFest, Lakewood's annual community festival. But the situation turned out incredibly well. I set up, tore down and helped staff the local history booth. We had lots of fun conversations about local history. But sometimes it seemed all folks wanted to do was tease me about my picture in the paper, and then personally thank me for trying to communicate with them and others.
It was pretty neat to get so many supportive comments, standing there in the glorious weather and in my favorite park. The Internet is great, but it's nothing like having a husband and wife looking you in the eye and intently telling you how much they appreciate your work.
Moodwise, I was sailing by the end of the day. And that helped if you saw how far we had to haul our stuff at the end of the day during tear-down!
When there were not folks talking about history in the booth, people like me who live, eat and breathe Lakewood politics talked quietly about the political subcontext of the whole story. We talked about why a couple people really criticized my use of a computer. You know darn well that people in Lakewood are not any more surprised by seeing someone pull out a laptop computer than folks in other cities. But such political conversations were few and far between.
Most SummerFest visitors live more normal lives - I envy them! - and don't eat, sleep and breathe the local politics or have a lot of time to focus on this whole little saga. For most of my neighbors, I repeated over and over what I said in the newspaper: blogging is a good idea, but I also learn from my mistakes! I sure would have done some things differently if I knew then what I know now.
Forward this post
If you are familiar with what actually happened, then it's interesting to read this shortened version. I'm a bit worried about what other elected officials and future elected officials who might glance at the story will 'take home' from this brief item. This whole thing started with the complaints of just two citizens who at least on the surface simply seemed unfamiliar with how many people use computers these days (AND who, I hasten to add, were also correct in some of their criticism).
It would be a shame if those few comments led to a chain of events that somehow discourages elected officials, in even the slightest way, from using the Internet to communicate with other citizens.
It's incredibly important for elected officials to share, and especially exchange, information with our constituents.
Of course, the story first came out Saturday morning in the local daily. It sure felt odd to have my face on the front page of the paper on the morning of SummerFest, Lakewood's annual community festival. But the situation turned out incredibly well. I set up, tore down and helped staff the local history booth. We had lots of fun conversations about local history. But sometimes it seemed all folks wanted to do was tease me about my picture in the paper, and then personally thank me for trying to communicate with them and others.
It was pretty neat to get so many supportive comments, standing there in the glorious weather and in my favorite park. The Internet is great, but it's nothing like having a husband and wife looking you in the eye and intently telling you how much they appreciate your work.
Moodwise, I was sailing by the end of the day. And that helped if you saw how far we had to haul our stuff at the end of the day during tear-down!
When there were not folks talking about history in the booth, people like me who live, eat and breathe Lakewood politics talked quietly about the political subcontext of the whole story. We talked about why a couple people really criticized my use of a computer. You know darn well that people in Lakewood are not any more surprised by seeing someone pull out a laptop computer than folks in other cities. But such political conversations were few and far between.
Most SummerFest visitors live more normal lives - I envy them! - and don't eat, sleep and breathe the local politics or have a lot of time to focus on this whole little saga. For most of my neighbors, I repeated over and over what I said in the newspaper: blogging is a good idea, but I also learn from my mistakes! I sure would have done some things differently if I knew then what I know now.
