Great webinar, bad title

I'm just on a roll with webcasts today. I listened to a great webcast (there was video too, but it wasn't really necessary - the guy had a powerpoint that the video never focused on). Unfortunately, the title was: "How and In Which Situations Web Logs or Blogs Work: How and Why They are Valuable in Children's Education." On its own, this isn't a bad title. It's very descriptive, which can be nice, but in this case the description doesn't match the content of the webcast. During the first 38 minutes of this 55-minute webcast, David Weinberger talks about knowledge, authority, and the organization of information. After that, he talks a bit about blogs. Then some people make comments and ask him a couple questions. Children's education isn't mentioned at any point.

If you ignore the fact that content has very little to do with the title, this is an EXCELLENT webcast. I found it to be very entertaining, and, even though Weinberger doesn't say much that felt very new to me, he did state some things that I'd never really thought about in much detail very clearly and coherently. Although the bit about blogging was short, I'd recommend it to anyone who blogs or is thinking about blogging - I found it to be inspiring. An example: as a perfectionist, I tend to be horrified by the number of typos sprinkled throughout my posts, both in this blog and in my other one. According to Weinberger, typos in blogs are more than just ok, they're an element of what makes them so great. Most people's blog posts aren't written and then edited multiple times until they're perfect - that's what you do with published writing, and blogs are more casual. Weinberger mentions the "culture of forgiveness" that allows people to trust bloggers and enjoy their writing, even if it's got typos or the writing isn't as good as it could be. I'll try to keep that in mind when I spot yet another typo. :)