… and so does the community.

Over the weekend Keri Mitchell and I attended a Blog/New Media Expo in Las Vegas. I am sure we will sporadically share our newfound wisdom with you over future days and weeks, but for now I’d like to touch on one important thing I derived from the experience:

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I learned that in order to have an outstanding neighborhood blog, you have to have outstanding folks out in the neighborhood writing regular, interesting, super-local posts. Advocate has a stellar editorial staff, if I do say so myself.  But we are but a very few people putting out five neighborhood magazines every month, plus the occasional special addition. While we want to be all over the place covering news for Back Talk, we can’t be more than one place at a time — or should I say we haven’t figured out how to yet.

That brings me back to my aforementioned assessment — we need the citizen journalists, such as Back Talk contributor Norman Alston, who help us keep our finger on the pulse of Lakewood and do a great job of writing about it.

Allow me, please, to take this opportunity to THANK YOU non-staff bloggers for your fabulous contributions to Back Talk.

In addition, I want to thank all of you who participate and leave comments — sometimes the comments hurt, but for the most part, your participation is invaluable!

We are looking for more contributors who, like Norman, have something to say about what’s happening in our hood, and who can do it eloquently and regularly. If that’s you, drop me a line.