Well, I’m in the Greensboro airport, on my way to a 3-day conference in Reston, Va. It’s called “Interactive Community News,” and it’s hosted by the American Press Institute.

What I’m hoping to get out of it is a bunch of concrete suggestions on how to get the people in our region more involved with our website. Since that’s the title of the conference, isn’t this a no-brainer? Not necessarily.

This crusade for community journalism is an old and venerable one, pre-dating the creation of the internet. By now everyone’s on board with the theory (barring some nervous corporate attorneys). But I don’t think we’ve found the ultimate venue to provide it yet. It’s like we’ve answered the “What?” question, now we need to tackle the “How?”

I’m hoping that this conference will be focused on the how, not the what. There’s something very dreary about a room full of people agreeing with each other.

Since the conference isn’t about my company’s internal workings, I consider it a loophole in my no-writing-about-work rule. I’ll keep you posted on what happens…