OK, so my plans for thoroughly blogging from Grahamstown pretty much fell apart mostly due to the fact that I spent more time doing what all conferences (conspiracies against African bloggers notwithstanding 
) are good for – meeting people (including the African internet Bismarcks and Leopolds…I can report that the African blogosphere survived any attempts to carve it out…turns out, believe it or not, that white folk really have more important things on their minds…maybe we should follow suit?), making connections, and learning AND on breaking down my resistance to Powerpoint – I did my first ever slide presentation (!!!).
Thankfully, I think I’m the only blogger who sucked at multi-tasking. For those looking for detailed coverage check out:
1. Mental Acrobatics (can I say that he’s a papparazzi extraordinaire), documented lots from ivory thrones to the real controversy. (Mental hebu stop hoarding those Malaika pics!).
2. Marazzmatazz was a scholarship receipient, but this doesn’t make him a Judas.
3. Bankelele goes global and breaks down banking in SA.
4. My presentation (my first talk ever on Mzalendo!) is summarized at the conference wiki here and by Ethan
5. An aside: for those who were concerned about this, the African Citizens Code of Conduct was a non-starter (as it should have been).
6. Mike Stopforth gives his take on the conference.
7. And finally there’s the DCI blog itself, where you can also see pictures from the conference.
On the non-starter issue; from the 5-day conference it was clear that bloggers are not journalists. Also Ethan mentioned in his talk that the internet has proved to be a self regulating medium over the last 10 years (browser-era) and nothing has happened to warrant a “code of conduct†for bloggers.
Okay could you blog on what we everyday blogger could learn from that conference?
[…] -conference post by Mike Stopforth on his blog and the numerous synopses offered by Ethan, Ory, Mental acrobatics and the official conference blog are anything to go by, it appeared the conference did […]