Thing 28 - Conference Blogging

I've been thinking about my experience blogging the conference. Conference blogging requires a whole new skill set which I, regretably, have yet to acquire. Writing an article may seem easy, but it requires some basic writing skills - determining a subject, organizing thoughts, writing a rough outline, fleshing out the thoughts, re-writing, and adding the final touches. It often takes me a day or two to organize my thoughts before I commit them. Sometimes even longer. Conference blogging requires a really different strategy. To attend a session, organize my thoughts and post to the blog all before going to the next session was really overwhelming. I had never taken a laptop to a conference before, so my learning curve began at figuring out how to balance a laptop. It went beyond that, however. How do you take notes for yourself which will be comprehensive enough to be of use afterwards and at the same time create a posting about the overall impression of the session for others to see? The instantaneous distillation of the main points of each presenter is somewhat akin to spontaneous translation. I can imagine using a double screen might be of some use. One screen is for the blog posting. The other for personal notes. Conference blogging is one of those skills like rubbing your tummy while patting your head, that not everyone can get the hang of. I wonder whether I will conquer or be conquered.