Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

so long my friend : nashville no longer talking

noticed today that nashville is talking is ceasing to exist as the blog portal for the nashville blogging community.

truth be told, it probably ceased to be the main portal some years ago when brittney left and the whole chaos ensued at nit & music city bloggers was birthed for a short while.

i enjoyed that community of folks at that point, some of the people i'm still in conversations with today. {in fact, have to thank newscoma for tipping me off to this.} back then you looked for the 'fresh rolled blogs' and knew when your site got linked because hits & comments would take off (well, for someone small time like myself). i remember going to the first barcamp cause all my blogger friends were planning on going, which was the first time i met many folks.. remember sitting next to rob robinson & recognizing him immediately because his hat & outfit was exactly like his thumbnail pic on his blog (yes i teased him about that one). met kate o in line with john carney (john whom i've known for years) we were all first in line (well, kate was actually first).

fast forwarding: that medium, that town square, we all met & built our friendships and community on ceases to exist. since those days of nit i can safely say that twitter, facebook, or anything since has garnered the loyalty & passions that the nashville is talking site did for us some four or five years ago. (gosh, has it really been that long?).

i would love some new place find some of that community. but alas, not all good things are forever & nashville is talking served a great place in my cyber musings life. so much so that it impeded into my real life, which i was more than okay with (it just took some explaining to the wife). so long my friend, nashville is talking. (i want to say some 'long tail' ulogy comment, but its just not quite there, so assume i said something clever & smile)

we're all gonna die : so who is your digital executor

saturday i spent my day at barcamp nashville 2009. barcamp is one of my fav days of the year. that along with podcamp are when i get to really hang with the geeks of nashville's tech community. one of the sessions i took in was dave delaney's session titled "we're all gonne die!"

i like dave's presentations because they are never quite what i expect them to be and his gift is that he doesn't try and cover everything in his braintrust. i say that's a gift. anyways, i recorded his session for your viewing pleasures with my notes & thoughts to follow.

Dave Delaney : We're All Gonna Die : BarCamp Nashville 2009 from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

my notes:

• what is going to happen to our content when we die?
• when die what to do with email, paypal, websites, domain names, web hosting fees, facebook, etc.
• facebook will close off profiles to new friends when someone is confirmed as having passed away, but will keep the account live for friends to visit.
• need a "digital executor," someone who knows all your stuff to keep your digital footprint going
• i see this necessity as much as leaving a 'digital legacy' much like the last lecture was from a dad to his children.
• facebook/myspace/blogs become a new place of mourning for a loved one or friend as they pass away. taking the place of the makeshift memorials on roadsides, fences, building walls, etc.

this was an interesting chat with erin after this, exploring the 'digital executor' idea. i'd thought of what might happen to all this stuff i do if i were to pass away. erin knows my passwords that i use and could figure out how to get into each account should she feel that need. however, her expression was, if you died i wouldn't want to mess with that stuff, so it'd be better to have someone to handle that stuff.

so i'm contemplating that.. who would you put in charge as a digital exector? friend, family member? someone you are close to or someone that is close to your wife/family who they are comfortable talking to?

an evening with unruly children

  shane & gangsta jonathon 
  Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

tonight was a fun treat. i got to hang with some of my favorite ex-bloggers. at the table: shane raynor of wesleyblog fame (he's got domain issues at the moment), cole wakefield of christian dissent, my bud jonathon of stphransus, and me (not quite the ex-blogger). i have referred to this grouping as the church's "unruly children."

we talked about all kinds of things, old early methoblogosphere experiences, current church issues, some possible new collaboration projects (which one i am pretty stoked to see if we can pull off), methodist publishing, and porn (sorta, not really). mostly though, we shared stories that are happening in our ministry lives.

shane & jonathon really got into it. shane has found a calling to his inner city church in austin where he has spent the last few years immersing himself into the relationship and discipleship of many of the inner city teens. this was why he stopped blogging, which i totally supported and God has really blessed the ministry he faithfully follows. he has some just fabulous stories. jonathon has started a new venture working with troubled teens in the nashville area. he just started this so he doesn't have as many cool stories as shane.

cole and i would make our sarcastic comments to fit into the conversation. actually, we had our own credible contributions. it was great fun. i had our gangsta ministers pose for this pic with the lifeway building in the background.