Getting ready for WordCamp

The Big Day is tomorrow and I admit to already being excited about going to WordCamp Israel.

The last blogging event I attended was in 2004, when a number of us Anglo-Israeli bloggers met-up following our interviews by Sarah Bronson of Chayyei Sarah, who at the time was doing freelance work for Ha’aretz English AngloFile. Really quite an amazingly diverse group, both politically and religiously. The only ground rule we had for our meet-up was no talking about politics. To an Israeli, even Anglo-Israelis, politics takes on the feverish pitch of sports worship. To spend an entire evening in the company of Israelis with definite political views and not talk about it was a huge statement about our goodwill, self-restraint and our well-developed sense of humor. (The Ha’aretz article, “Web diaries become hot medium for talk about Israel” is still available online, but you’ll have to look for it.)

After I signed up for WordCamp Israel, I received an email from one of the organizers wanting to make sure that I knew that the majority of the event would be in Hebrew and if I was OK with that. I answered that while my Hebrew is certainly better than it was when I made Aliyah, I wasn’t too worried. The only thing is – Israelis don’t realize that when they speak to other Israelis, they are speed demons. That I’m worried about.

The highlight for me will be hearing Lorelle’s keynote speeches (thankfully in English) on “Content Connections: the social aspect of blogging, comments, networking, linking, and how to start and continue the conversation on your blog” and “WordPress Tips: an interactive discussion of how to use WordPress, offering tips and techniques for making WordPress work for the blogger, no matter what kind of blog they use”.

Blogging fascinates me as a sociological phenomenon. What is there about it that drives people to spend hours writing something that potentially (or intentionally) only a few people will ever read? I’m not, of course, talking about people who are part of tech businesses and are promoting their web presence as a part of their business, but just the average blogger. Even though I’ve browsed the Attendee links on the WordCamp Israel registration page, it will still be interesting to see the diversity of tomorrow’s group.

And this just in! Today’s surfing around on facebook brought me to this post by Miriam over at WordPressGarage. Yikes, indeed! The hallways will be abuzz tomorrow.