Tuesday, May 15, 2007

What does "are you in" mean?

An earlier post asked "Are you in?" to continuing this or a similar blog now that the newsroom task forces are done. Trent asked "What does that mean?" And some designers have hungered to play with blogs for a long time. So here are some ideas:
Proposed rules and structure:
1. Five people (or even three) agree to be authors and each post once a week. If you miss a week, or two, no big deal. Try to limit posts to 100 or 200 words. Unlimited visuals. Nobody is a length- or posting-frequency cop. Agree to use common labels in posts; posts will be labeled "posted by so-and-so" at the end. Comments can be anonymous.
2. One or two people agree to be design authors to work to build a blog banner or two. Requires Photoshop or Elements and some ability to figure out HTML. They can also play with the color palette, but changing templates should be done with care, to avoid blowing away a bunch of good links.
3. One or two people agree to help maintain links. Everyone can suggest new links, but someone has to do the work of putting them in the link list.
4. Keep posts focused on learning or sharing new stuff, not on industry or internal woes. Don't just point or post about really obvious stuff everyone's going to find at Romenesko anyway; dig into the harder-to-find stuff, and focus on sharing how-to information, or "the story-behind-the story" tales.
5. Question and challenge, politely. Don't cuss. Don't yell.
6. If others want to join in the posts, welcome them to the discussion.
7. On occasion, break all the rules.