Scenes From the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention

Photographs, pictures and images:

Mincha
Yisrael Medad, Sharon Katz, Batya Medad, Risa Tzohar (IsraMom)
(credit: J. Richman)
Pensive Me (credit: J. Richman)
Ron Dermer (credit: J. Richman)
Akiva of Mystic Paths and my wife, Batya of ... (credit: J. Richman)
Steve Leavitt (credit: J. Richman)
My wife asking a question (credit: J. Richman)
Avi Abilow, Batya Medad, Sharon Katz (credit: J. Richman)
Jonathan Rosenbaum and panelists Danielle Seldman, David Kelsy, Orit Arfa
David Horowitz
Benji Loveit

A Second Nomination for the Free Trip to the Jewish Bloggers' Convention

I decided to make a second nomination (don't Jews do things by two - Moses to God: 'So, how much are those Tablets?' God - 'They're free' Moses - 'I'll take two then.')

Jewess aka Rebecca Honig Friedman.



Rebecca has broken new ground in asserting feminist Jewish issues - dealing with archival material, up-to-date cultural and religious issues, promoting the Lower East Side (a plus with me for sure), and moved up to TJC - The Jewish Channel, a new news medium of Jewish issues.

She has extended (I can't use broadened) the limits on serious Jewish communal and feminist discussions and would give a great angle to NBN reporting as well as attendance at the Conference.

I'm Selecting A Blogger to Come Participate in the 2nd Jewish Bloggers Convention

I received this:

Now’s your chance to select a Jewish blogger who will be flying on the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter Aliyah flight on Monday, September 7, 2009 and attend the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention.

Nominate your fellow blogger with the "Send a Friend" form on the JBloggers.org website and with a post on your blog, and be sure to read the terms and conditions on the site to make sure your entry qualifies.


The terms are simple:

1. To nominate a fellow blogger, you must be registered to attend the convention
(in person or online).
2. The nominated blogger can be located in Israel or the U.S.
3. You must post on your blog who you nominated and why
(and obviously send us the information too).
4. The blogger you nominate does not need to be registered to attend the convention.
5. The nominated blogger must have a Jewish blog
(i.e. about Jews, Judaism, Israel, etc.).
6. The blogger who flies in will be linked up with an Oleh/Olah/Family, and must write a series of posts about that experience.
7. If you want to win, you must find a fellow blogger to nominate you.
8. You can nominate more than one blogger (but don’t go overboard).
9. All nominations must be in by Thursday, September 3, 2009.
10. The NBN flight to Israel is on Monday, Sept. 7, 2009.

Additional terms and conditions

1. The ticket is round-trip JFK-Israel.
2. No ground accommodations or any other expenses are included.
3. The winner will be selected by Nefesh B’Nefesh.

Act quickly!

Stephen Leavitt
WebAds, LLC

I have some bloggers in mind and the first one I'll enter is Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

Why?

I have been in contact with Pamela for over three years now and have found her to be not only a powerful blogger with an independent voice on Jewish and Israel issues but one who has broken news stories, initiated major investigative topics, and acted outside the blogger universe taking on powerful forces. As such, she is an amazing phenomenon of public activity involvement as well as a motivational figure for many of us.

Pamela and I

Eating Waffles

We finally did it.


We finally did it.

Enjoying the waffle maker won at the First International Jewish Bloggers Convention.

Preparation and cooking - my wife.

Eating - me, my wife and youngest son.

Getting Ready for the Next Jewish Bloggers Convention

Okay, we've had one convention, international.

Someone needs to start of the preparations for the next one, so, let this be a contribution.

1. Sponsor

I vote for the people over at the New Israel Fund. They have the money and the sympathy for new technology. I'm even willing to accept a numerus clausus of one right-winger for every 2.5 left-wingers.

If that doesn't work, the WZO. That way, no one will claim a pro-aliyah group is taking over the program. And while ultra-orthodox non-Zionists might have problems, free flights and accommodations should solve that.

Of course, if Nefesh B'Nefesh is willing, I'm all for their sponsorship but it needs to be expanded physically (more rooms).

I am serious about this.


2. Needed preparation

We have to know what's out there. I found these suggestions of ways of gauging web sites which can be adapted to blogs:

Usability reviews
Usability experts have seen dozens or even hundreds of poor designs, and have learned to extract subtle commonalities. They quickly can focus on potential problems without even conducting a landing page test.

Focus groups
Via a moderated group discussion from your target audience, insights can be gleaned about user needs, expectations and attitudes. These findings can be compared to the proposed solution to determine if key elements are missing or are incorrect.

Eye-tracking studies
Eye-tracking is particularly useful in detecting problems in the earlier stages of visitors' decision processes, awareness and interest levels. If most test subjects do not look at the desired part of the page, they are not even aware that the conversion action is possible.

Customer service reps
Customer service reps deal with your site visitors' problems all day long. Feedback can be collected in three ways: direct interviews or surveys of your reps, or a review of actual visitor interactions. Chat and phone call logs can be used to classify problems into categories.

Surveys
A number of easy, Web-based or telephone surveying methods are available. Surveys among your target population can be a useful source for discovering additional problems with your site.

3. Agenda

As voiced previously, we need more time, more workshops for technical and other matter as well as time for like-minded niche blogs to get together.

4. Technology

On-line real-time video chatting and hookups so dozens abroad can participate or at least ask questions and make short comments.

5. International

We need to add Hebrew, Spanish and French.


Can all this be done? On time?

We can only try.


P. S. Can NBN add a page at their conference site to permit comments to be collected there?