I’ve been live-blogging (blogging about something while it is taking place), and more recently, live-tweeting, conferences for a long, long time.

The first time I ever attended a gathering of bloggers (it was, supposedly, the first time any group devoted to “business blogging” ever gathered), I knew that the world was changing because the most interesting conversations were taking place real-time among the people in the audience, not those on the panel (see #9 on my post after the meeting).

Conferences that are filled with tech people have long recognized the reality of the “backchannel,” or electronic ‘note-passing,’ taking place at any gathering. The early geek-favored backchannel of choice was (and for some, still is) IRC, but Twitter is now the audience real-time conversational medium of record. I witnessed, and I guess participated in, one of the first and still most famous melt-downs caused by such audience conversations: a session at the 2008 South by Southwest Interactive Festival that involved the lack of interview skills of the individual moderating a session feature Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Last Friday, I was on a panel at a conference put on by the Online News Association attended primarily by TV and newspaper journalists involved in their companies’ online efforts (with some bloggers also in attendance). A large number of people in the room were online or taking photos or shooting video. While I’m on lots of panels and speak to different groups quite often, this was the first time I’ve been so aware that a back-channel was actively occurring. (Although, come to think of it, a few months ago at BarCamp Nashville, something I said from the audience to a panelist lit up Twitter among those in the room.)

Fortunately, last Friday, people were saying nice things on Twitter and the blog posts I’ve seen were kind to me.

But this morning, conference organizer, the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Jack Lail, posted the accompanying video and I winced at my choice of a phrase to describe how I wouldn’t care if I upset people by moderating comments on a newspaper forum.

I apologize if I p-o’d anyone.

Team Hammock is lacing up its shoes once again to participate in the Country Music Marathon and Half Marathon on Saturday, April 25, in Nashville.

It’s one of the biggest races in the country, bringing together more than 40,000 runners and walkers—and among those will be at least two of us here from Hammock. That’s right, Jamie Roberts and I have already committed—and started training. (For anyone keeping count, the score is Editorial Department: 2, Art Department: 0).

Jamie and I both participated in the race last year, and if you’re on the fence about joining us, we can honestly say the cotton candy-flavored Go-Gurt at the finish line makes it worth every step.

We’re so excited about the prospect of eating cotton candy-flavored Go-Gurt again, that we’ve already started training for the race. For those of you who plan to be at the start line on April 25, we’re sharing a few of our favorite tips for the first month of training for a half or full marathon.

• Jamie says the right mix on your iPod is key. While iPods are forbidden on race day, they sure help all those training miles much more bearable. Upload your fastest-paced songs and intersperse those with more mellow tunes (for the breaks you’ll take in between spurts of sprinting or power walking).
• Lena can speak from experience when she says, “Get the right socks.” If you’re prone to blisters, find socks that are made of synthetic fibers—cotton socks are this runner’s worst nightmare.
• Whether you’re planning to walk or run the full or the half marathon, you’ll quickly find out that limber muscles will make training—and race day—much easier. Start good stretching habits in the first week of training so that by race day tight muscles won’t even be on your radar.

In an effort to get more of my fellow workers to sign up for the race, I’m going to be using forceful intimidation, bribery, blackmail and good old fashioned guilt trips. Check back in a few weeks to see if it worked.

Earlier this week, we launched a new Hammock email newsletter. Each month we will bring you insight into the latest custom media, social media marketing and community-building trends. In this issue we hit on topics including partnering with an outside media company, setting social media goals for the year, and 2009 magazine and media predictions.
We hope you are already on our distribution list, but if you aren’t, be sure to signup here.

On Friday, I’ll be participating on a panel at an all-day workshop the Online News Association is hosting in Nashville at Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt. Registration for the all-day program ends today ($35 if you’re not a member of ONA).

The panel I’m on (at 3:45) has the auspicious title: “Bloggers & Journalism: A panel of traditional newsroom and independent bloggers talk about what journalists do right and wrong in blogging. Learn how to be a better blogger.”

On the panel with me are Christian Grantham, WKRN’s Nashvilleistalking.com; Michael Silence, Knoxville News Sentinel’s No Silence Here blog; and Tammi Marcoullier, editorial director of Publish2.

“Are you here for the exclusive, online-only content? Right this way. Hey, by the way, how did you find out about us? Oh, the magazine directed you here? Wow, that’s great! It worked!”
30 minutes later: “Wow, you’re still here! You’re right, there is so much information on this site. Well, thanks for coming. Don’t be a stranger. Come back, we’ll have new content tomorrow!”
At least, that’s how I envision a conversation I’d have with a MyBusiness reader who I bumped into online.
With MyBusiness, the magazine we publish for the National Federation of Independent Business, the way we drive readers online is to offer them additional information about a topic that appeared in the magazine.

Any morning that starts with a delicious brunch at Old Ebbitt Grill, especially when it’s bedecked with lots of bunting and flags and patriotic people, has got to be a good one. Established in 1856, the restaurant was a hangout for Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Harding and Theodore Roosevelt and is still a fave with D.C. politicos. No celebrity sighting for me here, but just you wait.

Since the restaurant is just on 15th Street, steps from the White House, we took a short walk to join the throngs of people snapping photos right in front of the gates, then ventured down to 17th street on our way to the mall. Since the Daughters of the American Revolution‘s gorgeous Memorial Continental Hall is right along the way–1776 D Street, natch–my friends insisted on snapping a photo of me, fan that I am of the organization. Not two minutes after the photo–as we’re browsing all the vendors selling Obama hats, pins, shirts and all manner of photoshopped paraphernalia–a convoy of SUVs races by. I glance in one of the windows and see President H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, then watch as the swift moving line of cars turns into the secured drive of the White House. I wondered if No. 41 was going to help No. 43 pack?

The rest of the day we spent wandering a few awe-inspiring (even in 18-degree windchill) monuments like the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, catching the chilly little animals at the National Zoo, and enjoying some people-watching and yummy Indian food in the Adams Morgan area.

What’s hard to describe is the palpable feeling that we’re all together at this amazing party. A bunch of “shiny, happy people,” as someone today described. It’s normal to strike up conversations and laugh with perfect strangers. There’s spontaneous dancing and singing breaking out everywhere. People are willing to help each other navigate the stressful reality of a city bursting at the seams. (Tonight we were the last five passengers on a shuttle bus whose driver was going to turn us away … until the onboard passengers squeezed in and sat on laps so that we didn’t have to wait in the cold.)

It’s an early start tomorrow for this non-early bird, and I’ve got some planning to do before I brave tomorrow’s Inauguration Day crowd. It’s a good thing that Rex has done some of the heavy lifting for me here. Hope you stay cozy for the festivities–I’m going to be the dork in front of a JumboTron with hand warmers, 19 layers and hat hair.

P.S. Hope everyone has had a terrific MLK Jr. Day. There have been so many wonderful stories written about what this inauguration means to families across the nation, but I thought today’s Washington Post article about the Caldwell family’s civil rights journey was especially meaningful.

I might be a little insane, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now than here in Washington, D.C., for Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities. Yes, it’s bone cold, terrifically crowded, expensive and a little crazy, but I needed to experience this piece of history in the flesh, not just on CNN. As my new friend (we spent two hours together on the shuttle yesterday) “Fur Coat Lady” says, “I wanted to be a part of the mix.”

My goddaughter and her parents have joined me from the UK for the events. (When I figure out how to load video, I’ll show you their video explaining why they made the long trek.) We’ve succumbed to the rampant consumerism and bought several commemorative items (my dad NEEDS that plate) and even paid $5 to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of Obama (capitalism is still alive and well). We also toured the newly renovated American History Museum and saw the Star-Spangled Banner and Dorothy’s ruby slippers. The Smithsonian museums all have extended hours…and clean bathrooms.

The highlight of the day was the “We Are One” inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar, Garth Brooks, James Taylor and John Legend among others. Stevie Wonder did a fun number, and Beyonce did a nice job with “America the Beautiful,” but why Jack Black was a speaker, I have no idea. U2’s rousing “City of Blinding Lights” and Obama’s speech brought the biggest cheers. Ok, so maybe I wasn’t that close and had to see the whole thing on the JumboTron, but there was something electric about being there among the diverse, shivering, hopeful crowd.

If you’re curious, the Metro has been running efficiently so far. The workers have been infinitely patient with all the out-of-towners, helping us buy tickets and steering us the right way. Still, Sunday’s crowd–while mind-boggling–is apparently nothing compared to Tuesday’s test.

So, I’m off to conquer the city for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. President-elect Obama, in his Renew America initiative, is urging everyone to join a service project today. Find an event in your area here.

I survived—and loved every minute of it! (Sometimes I exaggerate, but maybe you can forgive me today.)

Despite the staggering crowds and frostbitten toes and fingers, I feel incredibly lucky that I could be an eyewitness to President Obama’s inauguration, such an amazing day in our nation’s capitol. It won’t be long before I’ve completely forgotten the travel hiccups and stressful moments when walls of people pushed against barricades; instead, I know I’ll more likely remember my mental slideshow of streets and ledges and walls and grass packed with excited, expectant faces.

Because of the numbers expected, media were cautioning that we should probably choose between watching the inauguration or the parade. We decided to head to the official inauguration festivities, hoping that an early start would at least get us in a decent view of the Capitol. We didn’t have tickets to the reserved sections, but we did make it as close as we could, snapped a few pictures, then turned back to camp out at a space on the mall near the Museum of American History. As the time ticked down to the oath of office and Obama’s speech, personal space went out the window and we all got a bit more neighborly. I’ve lived in NYC, but I’ve never seen that many people in such a concentrated space. (New Year’s Eve in Times Square is the only thing I’ve ever witnessed that might be comparable, and that’s only several hundred thousand people.) But no one seemed to mind the lack of elbow room as we waved our flags (provided by the cute lil’ Boy Scouts) and laughed and huddled and chanted and cheered.

Since my invitation to the ball was apparently lost in the mail, I’m headed for an early light’s out. This entire journey has been an amazing, festive party, but I—and all of us, so says our new president—have a lot of work to do!

If you are an association or corporate marketer who has decided that 2009 will be your organization’s year to join in the conversation taking place on the web, we suggest putting your toe in the water before diving into the deep end. But definitely get wet. Here are five resolutions to get you started:

1. If you haven’t already, set up accounts on these services: YouTube.com, Flickr, Twitter, GMail, FaceBook and LinkedIn. In later posts, we’ll be discussing each one in-depth, but for now, just make sure you have registered a username that is consistent across all of those services. Also, in later posts, we’ll provide you with about 15 other services to register on.

2. Purchase a digital camera small enough for a pocket or a bag: We’ll get very specific in a later post about which cameras to consider. But for now, just make sure you have a small digital camera that is always within arm’s reach. We have a saying here: “The best camera is the one you have when the picture appears.” The more bulky a camera is, the less likely you are to have it with you. Notice we didn’t say, “take some photos and upload them to Flickr.” At first, just resolve to carry a camera around with you.

3. Discover a wiki other than Wikipedia: We love Wikipedia, but unfortunately, it is so popular that many people think the term “wiki” means Wikipedia and therefore they miss out on the tens of thousands of other collaborative resources developed on a wiki format. Most wikis share some things in common, but they can differ drastically as well. Here are a couple of fun ones to explore: WikiHow, a collection of how-to articles and videos, and our favorite, SmallBusiness.com.

4. Write a review on Amazon.com: At some point, you’ve got to start viewing the web as something you don’t just read, but write to as well. We could suggest commenting on a blog or posting a “tweet” to Twitter, but around here, we believe the most meaningful content comes from your passions. If you love a book or song, write a few sentences why. You’ll feel like a champion when you hit that submit button. Promise.

5. Learn to search the World Live Web: One of the major challenges of explaining conversational media and the tools of social media is the notion that the Web is a “place” where people live and not a “medium” that people read and watch. We’ll be posting at length about “listening” to the web, but here are a couple of suggestions:

• Set up a Google Alert of weblogs for a keyword or phrase important to you.
• Go to the URL search.twitter.com and enter a search term, perhaps the name of a sports team or a unique word related to a topic you follow. When the search results page appears, leave the window open and it will be updated continuously as others add “tweets” that include that word. (Note: You’ll see a notification letting you know how many new tweets have been made, but you must manually hit “refresh” for the new ones to be displayed.

Subscribe to this blog, or visit often, as we’ll be sharing with you ways in which you can most effectively add your voice to the conversation.

Apparently (it’s all fuzzy now), a while back I added a comment on a story on Foliomag.com in which I said glibly, “This is the craziest time ever to launch a magazine, except for all the other times.” If you’ll notice, there were some big-time publishers featured in the actual story — and all I did was add that little comment.

I was just flipping through the current issue of the Folio: magazine and was surprised to see the first sentence in the cover story was that comment.

I’ve seen my comments, blog post quotes and even Twitter “tweets” end up in magazine and newspaper articles. I’m always happy when a reporter, writer or another blogger thinks what I have to say is worth picking up and passing along.

When I make presentations related to conversational media and the different ways in which individuals can now express themselves online, I’m typically asked how someone can get started. I always say: “Comment.” Commenting is easy and instant. And you don’t have to come up with a brand new topic to write about (although that’s not nearly as difficult as you think). Commenting is merely your personal reaction to, or clarification of, what someone else says. In other words, it’s what you do in “off-line” conversations.

So here’s the deal: Commenting on a blog post is quick and easy and it’s the simplist way for you to join in the conversation of conversational media.

[Note: A version of this post appeared on Rex’s RexBlog.com]