Dinner with Dan Gillmor

I had dinner with Dan Gillmor tonight. You might not know who Dan is, but to give you an idea of how important the internet thinks he is, do a search for 'Dan' at Google. He is currently #3 and #7 on the list!

Dan wrote a revolutionary book called We the Media that details how the internet is changing the role of traditional journalism in the country. Because this book was the first widely published book on the subject, it has skyrocketed Dan as the authority in America on citizen journalism.

I used my extremely well connected friends (haha) to score an invite to dinner at Sarducci's where Dan was eating before giving his presentation (thanks Tyrone!). The class I taught today ran late which meant I arrived 30 minutes after dinner started and the only seat available at the table of nine was the one...right next to Dan. Cool.

So this is where the story gets funny...

I was prepared to listen quietly to Dan's arrogance and ego, and now I had a front row seat to witness it. After reading Dan's book, I've heard him speak on the radio a couple of times and have been reading his blog, thinking that he was starting to get full of himself. I was perceiving a smugness in the way he brushed aside questions from callers and spoke about the media like he was the only person who understood what was going on in the world.

That's really what I was thinking on my way down to Montpelier, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

In person, Dan was simply a very laid back guy. It wasn't smugness or arrogance that I was sensing, it was just a dude sitting back in his chair, talking about a subject he clearly knows an awful lot about. During dinner he was very attentive to everyone else at the table, asking questions and very much engaging others to share their stories. There was neither a trace of ego nor a need to have a spotlight on him.

This personality carried over to the lecture where he gave a passionate presentation on the democratization of the media through the participation of average citizens. He answered questions enthusiastically, and continued to encourage a conversation with the audience rather than a one-way sermon. For this single reason, I will say that Dan definitely gets the whole idea of blogging. But then, that should have been obvious.

Check out Dan's blog where he writes about the San Francisco Bay area and issues concerning citizen journalism.

...and this is why there is no Small Business Blog of the Day today. :)

Tags: dan gillmor | we the media | citizen journalism

Comments

[Lance Dutson]

One question Brian-
Who paid for dinner?

[Daphne Larkin]

Dan was super! The presentation and discussion was thorough and full of useful information.

I liked how when he gave an example of a person posting a photo or inadvertently unearthing an important nugget of information through the web he would ask, "is that journalism?" and then, "I don't know," or, "I think that is." I thought that was a really good question to ask ourselves to help expand the definition of journalism.

I also liked that he's interested in how citizen journalism can save print journalism not supplant it.

Amy Goodman will be at Castleton tomorrow at 4:00.

[Brian Brown]

So to set the record straight, the nine of us went Dutch except that the host of Dan's presentation paid for his dinner.

Interesting that since last week, Dan's citizen journalism blog appears to have become part of the Backfence.com network.