Against Live Blogging

Last month I did a lot of blogging from conferences, and fellow participants who saw my signature giant laptop and crabby expression often assumed that I was "live blogging" the conference. I've never really been a live blogger, although I do generally write up talks, panels, and conferences the next day.

Instead, I think of myself more as a "mortician blogger," since my job is to dress up the recently deceased and make him or her presentable to the public, should convention dictate that others choose to have a look. Like any open casket service, you don't know how well visitors will have known the departed or the kinds of feelings that they may harbor, and so it is necessary to spend some time on interpretation and representation. After all, there are some who like to come to the funerals of others just as a spectator, and it's important for outside readers to find the proceedings translated for those who might be new to the subject.