The Mass Blogging Community and Ryan's Take

Just recently, I had to shut down Ryan's Take for about a week, which - as someone who sees himself as a blogger first and foremost - is about the last thing I ever wanted to do. Being unplugged certainly didn't feel good, but in the end I thought it would be a good time to think of ways to improve and foster a true Massachusetts blogging community. Of course, we've had events in the past, but many of the Mass blog leaders who organized these events have been extraordinarily busy and have sought help, or are no longer active in the community. So, in the week that I didn't blog or even think about blogging, I decided to come up with a few ways to foster a better Mass Lefty Blog community: a community that's more successful in getting its message out and one that can actually deliver a little more muscle.

So, here are the things I've decided are going to happen, even if it damn near kills me:

• Events!! Even if I'm the one doing most of the planning, there's going to be more blogger events. It grows the sense of community, as well as allows all of us to step back and think of ways we can, indeed, be more successful. In person. During election times, we've sponsored candidate forums, raised money and created tangible results in other, meaningful ways - but the question becomes how do we expand beyond that and into the realm of what truly effects us: policy. Elected leaders can't fix policy alone, after all.
  
• Look for the first major event to be in April. I'll have more details when they're finalized. It will be a general meet-up for kicks and giggles, but I also want to discuss some of the ideas above, but bring your own, too.
• In terms of Ryan's Take, I'm creating an email list. Email has been an essential tool, especially during this time off from blogging. I love comments and responding to them, but I especially love personal email and getting to really know the people who read my blog. I've never been a huge fan of email lists, but in some ways an email is one of the best ways to feel a part of the "blogging" community. So I just want to have an organized list of people who actually read my blog, so I can get a sense of who the community is and so I can better alert people to when there is something important going on - like a blogger meet up, or some kind of important announcement. If anyone wants to be a part of this list, either send me an email or a comment... and know that if I use it, it probably won't be more than once a month, because I just prefer personal interaction to anything else.
• I have so many more thoughts on things I'd like to do, both in terms of organizing the community and in terms of my own blog, but they're going to have to wait until after the first big blogger meet up.