Will Knott

And no doubt a few other words beginning with P.

Once, back when I was a child, St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t that special. True it was a little reprieve from Lent (which seems to be 46 days this year if I’ve counted correctly), but not much. The parade would be a few freshly frozen marching bands (all those shivering majorettes in short skirts being gently caressed by the Irish hailstones remain a memory).

Maybe it was confidence. Maybe it was cash. But thanks to the lesser spotted Celtic Tiger, the parades got bigger, brighter and better. Its a week long festival and no longer a single day. Now the photographs are worth taking.

Which brings me to Pix.ie. They have been working with the organisers of the Irish St Patrick’s Festival on a huge photo sharing project to help document this year’s festival in photos from the perspective of those attending.

That means anyone in the country with a camera as far as I’m concerned. But they mean any of the events (or the un-events) of the popper festival.

Anyone who brings their camera to this year’s events to can contribute their photos to the official St Patrick’s Festival group so that the experience can be shared with people from all over the world.

And to bribe you / make it worth your while… there are prizes.

Three lucky winners whose photos capture the spirit of the festival. Canon have offered prizes with a total value of just under €1,800.

• 1st Prize – Canon EOS 1000D digital SLR camera, Selphy ES3 photo printer, 150 Euro photography training course, adding memory card and photo printing paper. Total value €1,050
• 2nd Prize – Powershot E1 digital camera and Selphy ES3 photo printer. Total Value €480
• 3rd Prize – Selphy ES3 photo printer. Total Value €240

And it doesn’t stop there! You see the pix.ie community and the Irish Blogging community (some are still recovering the the Irish Blog Awards) at large  gets some love for the parade. (Not to be confused with the “Love Parade”)

• 20 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the St Patrick’s Festival parade from a vetted viewing area. Each will be given an official wristband to gain access to this exclusive VIP area.
• 4 bloggers and photobloggers will be invited to watch the parade from the Festival Grandstand.
• 2 photobloggers will be invited to join the world media and take photos of the parade from the elevated position from the official open topped Media Bus which is positioned on the parade route.
• 2 Pixie users will chosen (subject to a security check) and given a Golden Pass which provides exclusive access to the parade route on the day. Only 12 Golden Passes will be issued this year to the international media and this is the first time photographers outside of the national and international media have been invited on into the parade route.

Which I think you’ll join me in saying “these are bloody bloody good prizes”. Then throw in the party at the Guinness Storehouse, and it may be a weekend that you need the photographs to remember.
Even without the competition, this is a great way to share your experience of the festival and let the world see Ireland at its best.

See the Pixie blog for more details and follow @stpatricksfest and @pixie on Twitter for ongoing information and news about what is going on. (Hashtag for St Patricks’s Festival is #spf09)

And I’m late with this news as AJ, Alexia, Con, Hugh, Iced-Coffee, Jason Roe, McAWilliams, Mary-Rose and Red Mum (update 22:16 Mar 4 2009, and GrannyMar)have already covered this, not including the Pix.ie blog.

Well I’m going to stock up on batteries and memory cards.

take care,

Will Knott

This post has changed direction several times in the last three days.

At first I was going to write about green issues. What happened was that I bumped in to a pair of representatives for Change.ie, a government run site for creating a plan of action for environmental change and reducing Ireland’s (and maybe the world’s) carbon footprint. I told the reps that I was surprised that there hadn’t been blogger outreach to other blogs concerning green issues, and pointed out a few that I knew of.

One rep asked me to e-mail in the details of the sites, the idea was to get something of an aggregator going.

The first person who came to mind was Ms. Phoebe Bright…

who seems slightly miffed in this photo about what happened next.

Phoebe presented at the recent Open Coffee BBQ about energy, energy demand and a technological solutions to change the thinking currently driving our consumption habits. Well worth a read if you weren’t at teh presentation.

Also, how can I forget Greennav. Actually I did, which is why I e-mailed in the links. Greennav is an odd mix of a group blog in that anyone can add to it. So its one better than an aggregator, is something of a community. And yes its full of green hints and tips.

Even the landscape gardener Peter Donegan has added a collection of green hints and tips to his site.

And now a change in direction.

Ladies and gentlemen. Get them together, as the response from the government sources was “that’s nice, anyone can blog, go ahead”. Or a “we’ll do nothing thank you”.

This is one of those areas where we should collaborate, and double, nay triple the voices to get the messages, and actions out there. A green meme. Not just an internet meme but a get off our backsides and do something about it meme.

I’m just not sure what.

But its this tendency for collaboration which brings me to to the next change of directions, sponsored by Twenty Major and Adrian Weckler.

They have complained about the fact that …

1. We’re not angry and fighting enough. (But Mr Weckler things me are too angry).
2. We aim for consensus
3. We don’t do enough investigative journalism
4. Bloggers seem to be people who are fake

Well lets see.

I know that I don’t intend to ever get close to Granddad without a stab-proof vest, but the Irish blog-sphere is a small place. If you don’t count Bebo blogs, you could fit most of the Irish bloggers in a medium hotel for an awards ceremony. Because we are a small group, the chances of prolonged bickering are few. Grudges can be held, but so can tongues. And the word “community” tends to hold sway. (Besides, Twitter is the place for small short-lived Irish fire fights). And besides, Barcamps, Tweet-ups, Open Coffee clubs, photo-walks and general get-togethers happen enough to prevent full blown flame wars that lead to bits going missing.

As for a consensus. Well, the early Irish bloggers were either techies, or non-technical people in the technology industry (sometimes in the one person). In this world, standards mean a lot. Consensus gets the job done. And could a barcamp exist without consensus?

As for people who aren’t and don’t aspire to be investigative journalists not doing enough investigative journalism for Mr Wreckler’s liking. Well, circular logic only gets you so far. Maybe you would be willing to teach us the way, and teach us, using your blog or course, on how to do these investigations. I think a few hundred well trained (even if we are bored, lonely or angry) bloggers might do you some justice. (Besides you forgot about Maman Poulet teaching journalists how to do their jobs when it came to Michael Lynn).

And finally, “bloggers are fake”. Now he’s not talking about fiction blogs, nor blogs maintained by a fictional (or pseudonymous) character. He’s talking about people who create great blogs, to get employment, and once employed, stop blogging. I can only assume that he means people who want to write for a living, and are using their blog as a portfolio in the same way that an artist creates work for themselves, to get their own style (or voice) and use that portfolio as a way to become a writer.

Well, if they exist, and I actually expect that they do, then more luck to them. If the only reason they wrote was to get someone to pay for the writing, then isn’t it better that they stop blogging?

Can we all agree to that?

take care,
Will Knott