Blogging 101: If I Can Blog, You Can Blog

Corvallis Breast Cancer Support Group presents:

Jeanne Sather
Blogging 101: If I Can Blog, You Can Blog
Monday, May 19, 2008, 7 to 9 p.m.
Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center

For more information, contact Gerry Gibson at (541) 768-6005 or ggibson@samhealth.org.

The Web is the Wild West of publishing. The rules, standards, and conventions are still in flux.

For example, print journalism has a traditional separation between editorial content and the ad department. This is fuzzier on the Web. This is both good and bad.

What I like most about the Web, and blogging, is that the Web is so democratic. Anyone who has a computer and a couple of hundred dollars a year to pay for Web hosting can reach the entire world with his or her ideas. That is democratic in a way that conventional publishing and media (with all their gatekeepers) are not.

Also, blogs are cooler than Web sites right now.

Some background: Cancer patients are heavy users of the Web, for information, but also for connection and community. Cancer patients use Web sites, like Cancer Lifeline or the NCI Web site. There are also for-profit Web sites like WebMD.

Cancer Lifeline
http://www.cancerlifeline.org/

NCI
http://www.cancer.gov/

WebMD
http://www.webmd.com/

Cancer patients also use bulletin boards, typically attached to Web sites, like the one on the Young Survival Coalition Web site.

YSC bulletin board
http://www.youngsurvival.org/
http://www.youngsurvival.org/en/community/bulletin-board/

And they use listservs, which come through the Web in e-mail format. Typically, you must register to access a cancer listserv.

ACOR listservs
ACOR.org
http://www.listserv.net/scripts/wl.exe?XH=LISTSERV.ACOR.ORG

Examples
These examples are all cancer blogs.

Types:
1. Primarily for family and friends, Dee’s blog
Dee's Updates
http://www.deeupdates.blogspot.com/

2. To fight the isolation of having a rare type of cancer, Teri’s blog
The Cheeky Librarian
http://cheekylibrarian.blogspot.com/

3. Screaming at the universe. Sara's blog.
Moving Right Along
http://movingrightalong.typepad.com/moving_right_along/

4. My blog. The Assertive Cancer Patient: Living with cancer, and an attitude
http://www.assertivepatient.com/

I’ve been living with, and writing about, cancer for nine-plus years now. I think what I have to say is helpful to other people with cancer.

The blog also gives me a way to process what is happening to me personally. And sometimes just to rant about cancer. Because there is plenty to rant about.

Some examples:
Jeanne’s Diary
http://www.assertivepatient.com/jeannes_diary_2/index.html

Jeanne’s Soapboxes
http://www.assertivepatient.com/jeannes_soapboxes_1/index.html

Breast Cancer Barbie
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2006/10/breast_cancer_b_1.html

Boycott October campaign
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2007/09/boycott-october.html

“Cancer movie” reviews
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2007/03/reviews_cancer_.html

The most popular section of my blog is probably the Medical Mistakes section
http://www.assertivepatient.com/medical_mistakes_1/index.html

My goals for my blog:
* To be the most widely read cancer blog in the U.S.

* To influence public policy on issues such as health insurance and access to care.

* To change people’s thinking about health and illness. “As long as my kids are happy and healthy….” “As long as I have my health…”
Happiness
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2006/08/the_assertive_c_1.html

Go to: How to Put Up a Blog

This presentation was sponsored by Sue Savage, a local breast cancer survivor. Thank you, Sue. And also by Gerry Gibson, the breast cancer facilitator. Thank you, Gerry.

@ Jeanne Sather 2007, 2008. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Dee]

Also, Gerry Gibson, our breast cancer facilitator, has also contributed to the support group presentation! : )

[debutaunt]

Working on replies to both your emails, chica. Will be tonight or tomorrow. So much paperwork today - yuck!

Love you!

[Sara]

I think you have me mis-categorized. Perhaps you mean someone else?

Also, don't forget Laurie's blog, "Not Just About Cancer" -- which is just what it says, and its own self-named type as well. :)

http://notjustaboutcancer.blogspot.com/

[jeanne]

Sara--how should I characterize your blog? I'm happy to change it. What I meant is that you really vent, when you need to, and also that you are well informed and logical. But of course I don't mean to imply that all you do is rant.

Oh, I showed your blog to an oncologist from South Korea today--he was very impressed.

[Sara]

Hmm...

You know, I've been thinking about this for hours, about why I started my blog (as a resource for other amputees), about how various personal adventures, the death of my last cat, NaBloPoMo (http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html and http://www.nablopomo.com/ ), Love Thursday (http://shuttersisters.com/home/2008/5/29/love-thursday-may-29-2008.html ), the work of so many other bloggers, wonderful hearts and minds all over the world with all sorts of complicated personal stories of great beauty they share so openly, and probably irrepressible narcissism combined with my very -cough- unique sense of humor have together helped it all escape cultivation, and you know what? I think it might be a series of love letters. And every love affair includes a few fights here and there if it's real, right?

I know you know what I'm talking about, because your blog is part activism and part resource but mostly love letter, too.

Tell me I'm wrong. :)

[jeanne]

Sara--I saw (and see) your blog as being very similar to mine in its goals and purposes. So I completely agree with your description of how the topics on the blog came to evolve--I think this is a topic for discussion at the Cancer Bloggers Reunion.

Meantime, I'll change that description on the post. Sorry if it offended you. That was NEVER my intention.

Jeanne

[Sara]

I am NOT offended. I was just surprised. I also really thought you meant someone else.

I hope I make it in July. It's not looking good, since I don't even have a freakin' surgical date yet. (Don't ask. Must keep blood pressure low, and there just isn't enough yoga in my repertoire.)

[jeanne]

Oh, shit, Sara. Keep me posted. I really want you to come. So keep it open right up to the last minute, OK?

And if you can't make it, maybe we can do the next one in your part of the country, to make it easier for you.