Read all about his adventures in the “most secret place” and hear his thoughts on all the creative and dangerous people he’s been hanging out with.

Aaron commented on it over at The Voiz.

Vlog RSS Feed

Podcasting and Internet Evangelism Session Notes [PDF 80k]

For hosting, also check out OurMedia.org for free podcasting/vlogging hosting.

For recording, check out
Super MP3 Recorder Pro, recently used by Adam Curry on the Daily Source Code

For a freeware option, try All2Wav paired with RazorLAME

Blogging Panel

• Nick Ciske (me)
• Will Samson
• Steve Knight
• Stephen Shields
• DJ Chuang

Blogging Services

• Blogger (stephen shileds uses)
• Movable Type (steve knight uses)
• TypePad (will samson uses)
• WordPress (my fav)
• Xanga
• Live Journal (popular among teens)

Ping this

• Pingomatic

Blog Search

• Technorati

Blooging tutorials

• Blogging For Dummies [PDF]
• ldiot (Jonny)’s guide to starting a blog by Jonny Baker
• Corporate Blogging Guidelines from Thomas Nelson Publishers
• How to Start a Blog
• How to Get Into Blogs, 101 (good bloggers read other blogs)

One thing I think was perhaps misunderstood, and I hope we cleared it up, was that blogging is not a threat to the church or the Church.

Will talked a bit about his crisis which led him away from the institutional church and into the Emerging conversation… which I think some people may have seen it a dangerous thing, it really isn’t. Blogging is just conversation, if conversation is dangerous… then not having conversation is more dangerous.

It is (among many other things) a safety net for many that have left the church (not the body of Christ) and need to talk things over. It’s a place for dechurched, unchurched, and hurt people to find friends who are asking the same questions, or who have gone through the same experience.

An ‘emergent cohort’ is simply a gathering of emerging church folks. They are forming in cities around the world. As we had a concentration of emerging church folk in Lynchburg tonight, we essentially had an Emergent cohort meeting, although that’s not what we set out to do, it just happened.

Will Samson, Steven Shields, DJ Chuang, Steve Knight, Aaron Flores, Jim Gilliam, and myself went to a local establishment and hung out after the conference. We were filmed for possible inclusion in Jim’s movie in progress, tenatively titled “Church 2.0.”

The highlight of the night, however, was when were ribbing Will a bit for his use of “following God in the way of Jesus” during the blogging workshop (it’s an Emergent thing). Steve joked that we should “order our food in the way of Jesus.” The waitress responded, “I believe in Jesus, but I don’t order my food in his name!” Priceless. Jim has it on tape, hopefully it will make into the movie, or at least the blooper reel.

Aaron vlogged a bit of the night.

After feeling a little out of place all day (I was underdressed and plan to be again) it was good to be among friends – some new, but friends nonetheless.

The networking dinner was fun- I got a chance to talk with Aaron Flores about vlogging. As we are both ‘multimedia’ bloggers we really clicked and had a good conversation about technical challanges and the future of the a/v blosphere.

My first Podcasting worshop went… ok.

I had some issues:

• I forgot to print off my notes, so I did it from memory.
• I hadn’t really given it a full run through… so I didn’t spend my time well- too much tech not enough ‘vision’ and I still ran late
• People didn’t have my handout (my bad- I handed it in late)

The tech demos had some bugs:

• Audioblogger wasn’t posting to Blogger (at least not in a timely manner)
• Ipodder didn’t like my FeedBurner converted (Atom->RSS 2.0) feed from blogger
• WordPress 1.5 didn’t automatically add an enclosure element like it’s supposed to (I think?!)
• I didn’t realize the projector had a decent speaker so I didn’t hook it up… thus people couldn’t hear my podcast demo (it really needs to be heard for full effect!)

Tomorrow will be better, I promise!

But, in the end, I got applause and some interested people. Hopefully we’ll see some new podcasts come out of this conference. Perhaps they’ll all be vloggers after Aaron’s workshop tommorrow (which I’m looking forward to attending).

Dan Henrich just finished the opener and David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus is going to talk about the digital divide.

Superman = “Super Jew” in response to the Holocaust, Krypton = Justice in Hebrew…

Superman = retelling of the Gospel?!?

And so does E.T. ?!?

Hmm… Interesting…

I was stopped by airport security, but not for my T-shirt. I was stopped, because I forgot I had my leatherman in my backpack. Understandably, they were a bit concerned that I had multiple 3 inch blades in my backpack, but it was an honest mistake. I’m told my honest mistake, if repeated, could cost me 4 digits (money, not fingers).

By the grace of God (I think) my shirt had funk on it (thanks for noticing John) so I changed. I think that may have saved my butt, as I barely made my plane. Trying to explain the complexities of copyleft, creative commons, Bill Gates, and the current state of intellectual property rights to a TSA worker would have taken awhile.

So anyways, I’m here at my good friend Steve’s house blogging on borrowed WiFi and my battery is dying, so I’m going to end it here. Tomorrow morning we head to Lynchburg for the conference. Stay tuned…

You will have access to the workshops both in realtime streaming and from a video on demand service for at least 6 months.

That’s right, you can watch me (and many other great speakers) at your convenience for only $20.

How can you say no to that? (dial users are exempt from that last comment

Anyways, I hope to see you… or have you see me… next weekend at the conceference. I will either succeed brilliantly or fail miserabley. Either way should be entertaining. The one think I hope I will not be… is intensely medicore.

Pray for me (I’ll need it!)

–Nick