The Failed 2008 Jewish Bloggers Conference

The 2008 Jewish Bloggers Conference has ended. It was, for the most part, a failure. This is despite the fact that many parts of the event were, in a certain light, successful.

The conference was hosted by Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization doing a wonderful job at encouraging and helping people make aliyah to Israel. It's aim was to bring together 20 to 30 bloggers in order to discuss how blogging can be used to help with Israeli hasbara ("public relations").

They ended up with 200 bloggers and press, as well as a brand manager from the Foreign Ministry and former prime minister Bibi Netanyahu as speakers. The broadcast went out to over 1,000 other bloggers and curious folks around the world. I had a good time meeting a few people I'd met before, and many others whom I had never met.

So how was this a failure?

1) A blogger is a person who uses a tool called a blog, much the way that a photographer is a person who uses a tool called a camera. Other than the tools we use, and a few cultural implications thereof, there is no more unifying relationship between bloggers than there is between photographers.

In particular, there is no common conviction that Israeli bloggers are doing hasbara, or should be doing hasbara, or even what hasbara is. Among the three or four key speakers, and the eight panelists, there was little consensus that there was common ground for hasbara. Several of them denied doing it, some were completely against it, and barely any even addressed the question.

To illustrate this, at on point during the Foreign Ministry's lecture on how Israel can present a multicultural side to the world, one fanatic in the audience began yelling "Israel is a Jewish country! Israel is a Jewish country!" loudly and repeatedly, until the speaker had to step down. It was the most egregious event of the evening, but fairly symbolic of the problem: what the heck were we all doing there talking about Israel and hasbara? Why weren't we talking about blogging tools, readership, and RSS feeds? Or at least a multiplicity of topics which included hasbara for those who were interested?

Why? Because Nefesh B'Nefesh hosted the event. And they had a mistaken impression of what it is that bloggers do. In this, they were no more or less misunderstanding of blogging than the companies to which I applied for blogging positions.

2) The conference ran relatively smoothly, but the speakers were not well coordinated. Most of them appeared not to have prepared whatsoever. Most of them didn't address the topic questions, and simply spent five minutes or so saying why they got into blogging and what their URL is. After the entire evening, nearly no information was gained. No hasbara was achieved. No new plans were formulated. No non-obvious blogging tips revealed. It was, essentially, a complete waste of time, were it not for the fact that 200 blogger had a chance to meet each other.

First panel

Various bloggers were supposed to answer the question as to how to increase readership. Some ignored the question, some said the questions was irrelevant, and the few tips that were given were all essentially "comment on other people's blogs".

David aka ck from Jewlicious revealed that he believes Jewlicious to be a kiruv effort.

Bibi

The first panel was interrupted by an appearance by former prime minister Bibi Netanyahu. The last time I saw him up close, I offered him a piece of pizza which he declined. That was before he was prime minister.

He opened by looking at the nameplates in front of the panel of speakers. "Jewlicious?" he quipped. ck quipped back "Natanyahu?" which garnered a number of laughs. Bibi answered "Netanyahu is in the tanach! I don't think Jewlicious is!" He spoke, essentially, of wanting to bring Likud back to power.

When asked if he championed blogging when he was prime minister, he said no, because it was after his term (1999). But now Israel should have an anti-smear website, following Obama's lead.

When asked whether he supported direct representation in elections, he answered that Israel is too small for that, but that knesset members are currently too beholden to party lists than to voters. He favors the German election model.

When asked whether he monitors blogs (he has his own blog, by the way), he said yes.

He answered a question about Jewish rights to the land with a long speech about Jewish historical connection to the land until being evicted by the Arabs in the 8th or 9th century. And you should read his book for more details.

And lastly, he said that Arab propaganda turns the result of Arab aggression into the cause for the next Arab aggression.

Frum Satire

Frum Satire gave a short set of slightly amusing material: not embarrassing, but not especially memorable either. And then a waffle iron was raffled off to one lucky winner.

Zavi Apfelbaum, Brand Manager of the Foreign Ministry

Zavi spoke about Israel's image problem being the result of focusing too much on trying to prove we are right rather than trying to appear attractive. She said:

- branding is complementary to hasbara efforts
- branding incorporates both the bad and the good; example: The Big Apple
- If you don't define your brand, others will do it for you
- A brand engenders loyalty that will carry its fans through small periods of bad experiences

She spoke too long, too repetitively, and too simply for the audience. Long after we all got the idea and wanted her to move on, she was still trying to convince us that Israel has an image problem. She showed a video clip of how the average American knows nothing about day-to-day life in Israel, but again for far too long, when we were hoping that she would then present us with he solutions.

Unfortunately, she only barely got to solutions after the talk was officially over, and they weren't very clear solutions. They involved some combination of passion, ingenuity, and fusion, but ignored Israel's great assets of history and technology, for example.

Second panel

The second panel was supposed to answer how to use your blog as hasbara, but, as i mentioned, most of the panelists didn't feel like doing that. At best, simply presenting posts of the daily struggle for existence functions as a kind of hasbara that life goes on, outside of any external conflicts.

My Aliyah Idea

Lastly, Nefesh B'Nefesh introduced a new website for collecting ideas about aliyah, called myaliyahidea.com .

You can see the list of panelists on the conference site. They served some nice food and desserts. Pictures here and here.

Yehuda

Session Report, in which David and I call and make Grand Tichus

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Year of the Dragon, Caylus, Cosmic Encounter, Tichu.

They play Cosmic with a few rules mistakes. David and I swap Tichu calling in a close game.

Revamping the Prototype / Busy Week

Revamping my prototype ... ready to test again tomorrow night.

Last week my prototype had a pyramid of tiles: 1 on top of 4, 9,16, 25, and 36, for a total of 91 tiles. On your turn, you take any uncovered corner tile. Certain game rules apply as different levels of the pyramid disappear. The game is over when a specific tile in the bottom center of the pyramid is taken.

I borrowed this from another prototype I created, although you could call it in the same family as Mah Jong solitaire. It's nifty, and I may use it for the other prototype if I ever complete it, but it doesn't work for games where the tiles are face up and more than just a solid color. The pyramid is so busy looking that it produces paralysis when it's your turn to select a tile.

Instead, I'm trying the following: forty tiles in Bag 1, thirty tiles in Bag 2, twenty tiles in Bag 3, and ten tiles, including the "game over" tile, in Bag 4. Game over when the "game over" tile is drawn. Certain game rules apply depending on which bag is is use.

Less decision making this way, so I have to add decision making in other ways, such as giving all players a tile or two to start with, so they have a choice of what to play each round. I'm not sure everyone is going to be happy with Bag 4, however, as the game could end on the first draw, or worse, the draw right before your turn. We'll how it works out.

Last week's prototype also had a money system with too much money coming in and not enough to buy, and a poorly designed point system. I've tuned it up.

Busy Week

Sunday night I went to a Tu B'Av "party". Only, it wasn't a party, per se. It was (mostly) people older than me reading things that they've written on such jovial topics as God and the Holocaust. Another one read a prayer she was working on for rape survivors; it had been edited from the one she read last year and the year before.

Each reader took nearly an hour of conversational space, and most of it was in Hebrew, which I can follow if I concentrate, but not if I zone out. So I went off to the dining room and browsed through the hosts' son's excellent sci-fi and fantasy collection.

Monday, tonight, my daughter Tal finished her three week drama camp. They did a week of Shakespeare, a week of musicals, and a week of improv, drama, and comedy. Then they put on a 100 minute performance. Although they read from scripts sometimes, it was very entertaining, and astounding how much they did in three weeks.

Tal as Juliette

Tuesday is game night.

Wednesday is the first Jewish Blogger's conference.

Thursday I am going to learn contra dancing with Rachel, for some reason.

Friday before shabbat is a 2 hour kabbalat shabbat singing session in the moshava, before shabbat starts.

Shabbat and Sunday night is a bar mitzvah of the son of close friends (the brother of the girl whose bat mitzva party inspired my Metamorphasis post).

Yehuda

Weekend Gaming

Puerto Rico

Nadine, Rachel, and I played in the late afternoon. Unusual buildings:

Poorhouse 2/1: Take a doubloon if you end a building phase with 0 or 1 doubloons. Result: I bought it as my second building and managed to use it three times. Not a very powerful building.

Mercantile District 5/2: +1 VP when you trade. Result: No one bought it.

Specialization Wharf 6/2: After crafting, you may discard the barrel on SW and place one of your barrels on SW. Only one barrel may be on SW at a time. When shipping, you can use SW as a wharf for the barrel type on SW. Discard the barrel on SW after SW is used. Result: No one bought it. But it's fine.

Private Boat 9/3: You may ship any three barrels on your own ship.. Result: No one bought it, but it's fine.

Reserves 10/4: +2 VP for each type of good on your board. Result: I've used this before, but it's hard to use. You have to time it perfectly. And have a Storehouse.

In our game, Rachel bought a Hospice and Assembly Line, while I bought an early Indigo Plant with my Poorhouse. As a result, the colonists went quickly, and the game ended with the colonists running out (first time in years, I would guess). Scores were therefore low. Rachel won 39 to mine and Nadine's 33.

Yinsh

We ate lunch at some friends, and they had two young men as guests. One of whom, Joe, brought out some of his Magic cards when he found out I played games. He had played Settlers of Catan once before, but couldn't find anyone else to play with. Meanwhile, the other one, Adam, had heard about Settlers and wanted to learn how to play.

They came over to my house while we were playing Puerto Rico, and I gave them Yinsh to play with until we finished our game. Joe picked it up immediately and loved it, while Adam is a less serious analyzer and so played more for fun. Joe won handily.

Settlers of Catan

After we were done with our games, I brought this out and taught Adam and we played. We had a great game, I was trailing a bit by mid-game, with a bit of bad luck with the numbers. Adam and Joe were also both cautious traders, but not in a bad way.

I managed to buy a slew of development cards near the end of the game, and earned two hidden victory points and Largest Army. I was pretty close to victory, but Joe got Longest Road and revealed his own hidden victory point to take the game.

More converts. Joe goes back to the states next week, but Adam will be around until January, so hope to see him come to game nights in the meantime.

Roundup: Three Years of Thirty Third Week Posts

A Call for Open Source Board Gaming - Now that I think about it, if there exists a list of "thought of mechanisms", it would give argument that mechanisms not on the list are somehow non-obvious.

A metastory about the boy who cried wolf

Thoughts on law, the bible, and conflicts

The U.S. Patent Code (USC35), in verse

Shopping Cart Envy

I am susceptible to shopping cart envy.

If the cart of the lady in front of me contains healthier, less overtly branded, or more environmentally-friendly packaged foodstuffs than mine does, I turn a judging eye onto my own cart.

Do I really need cranberry juice? Soy milk in a non-recyclable carton? Store-bought whole grain cookies? How come my cart doesn't contain only fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, dairy, and grains? Fruit juices are expensive and fattening. Soy milk comes in recyclable cartons in the refrigerated section. And I can bake my own cookies. And where's my cloth shopping bag?

And so, while the lady in front of me is checking out, I'm surreptitiously making sure the re-stockers earn their pay by stuffing the cookies under bags of M&Ms in the candy display.

On the other hand, if the cart behind me is stacked with boxes of soft drinks, Twizzlers, and Cocoa Puffs, I feel morally superior. What a rube! All that junk. Like you need that in your body, fella. Look at me and learn! I've got real fruit juice, soy milk, and whole wheat products, here. Psssh! The things some people put into their cart.

And watch out for those cookies on the floor.

Yehuda

Session Report, in which I test a prototype that's obviously not ready

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Prototype, Princes of Florence, Puerto Rico, Blue Moon City, El Grande.

We tested my prototype, but it needs a lot of work. I'll try revamping it.