Impromptu Blogger Meetup

I was given the opportunity to meet Douglas Bass last night, as he was travelling through Iowa on the way back to Minnesota from Texas, where he is helping his daughter move. He asked to see a restaurant that gave one a sense of what Ankeny is all about, and it just so happened that he called me while we were in such an establishment, called “Siam.” Siam is a family-owned Thai and Chinese restaurant that has flourished as Ankeny has grown, despite the multiple franchises that have come to challenge the local businesses. There are other examples, and if we had met earlier in the day, I would have taken him to CJ’s Bagels, famous for running Bruegger’s Bagels out of business in our town.

Here in Ankeny, we take care of our own.

He shared a meal with my family and got to know Tina and Ben just a little. It was nice to see him actively asking Ben questions about his schoolwork, especially the spelling bee that Ben will be in in another week or two. I imagine Douglas enjoyed this quite a bit, for he is a lover of the English language, very articulate and polite. Tina and Ben finished and went to run some errands and Douglas² headed over to Panera to enjoy some coffee and free Wi-Fi.

While there, he discussed with me the value of Technorati tags, which I have not adopted at this time. Using Technorati and some other services, he has been able to work with the Minnesota Organization of Blogs through a blog called MOBANGE! which is a very catchy name, I must say. He wondered if there is an Iowa coalition of blogs, and I honestly don’t know if there is one or not. We looked at the blogs on Technorati who have used Iowa in their descriptions, and discovered a blog that I may not read for lack of interest (no offense meant!) but whose title just cracks me up. Allow me to link you to Iowa Chicks Knitting!

We discussed the value of group aggregators in this sort of a venture, and I mentioned the potential value of Feed Digest for this sort of thing. One thing on my wishlist is an option to subscribe through RSS feed to an aggregate digest, as opposed to the individual blogs via OPML. This would allow each blogger the chance to have their own space on their own blog and also allow the group blog model to flourish without cross posting or forcing the members of a group to decide which blog they will write to.

This seems to be the year of the group blog. If blogs could incorporate in such a way that you write to your own own blog as well as the group simultaneously, and give people an easy way to read just your posts on your blog or the culmination of the group on the aggregate blog, and subscribe to either or both without having to choose between them or accept duplicate posts, it would be a great thing and encourage more people to try out this model.

Our time came to a close and he headed off into the sunset. Douglas Bass is a man who cares very much about technology and has also managed to keep his feet planted firmly on this world. That is, when he is not making side jaunts to the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. If you get a chance to meet up with him, I encourage you to do so. He is a wonderful man who can discuss virtually any subject with you and will certainly get you pondering things you had never considered before.