The first Slow blog...

Well, here we are. Slow Planet is finally live. This is just the beta version but it is the start of something big. Over the coming months, the site will grow as we add lots of exciting content and new features. Leading Slow thinkers will blog and write columns here. From today I will be a permanent fixture on Slow Planet. As the author of In Praise of Slow, I have a front seat on the Slow Revolution and I will use my blog to muse on the many ways that people everywhere are putting the Slow philosophy into action. My aim, and the aim of Slow Planet, is not to hand down the law on tablets of stone. It is to help spread ideas and get people all over the world talking to each other.

In this first blog post, it seems appropriate to write about the art of blogging. Is there such a thing as Slow blogging? It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? By its very nature, blogging is all about speed - instant analysis and reaction from the front line. At every conference I go to there are always a few people in the audience, laptops open, screens glowing eerily in the half-darkness, blogging away in real-time while speakers strut their stuff on stage. I'm in two minds about this. On one hand, I love the energy and insights that come from an instant reaction. I've read these real-time blogs and they can be sharp and profound. But sometimes I wonder how much these nimble-fingered bloggers are really getting out of the speeches - are they picking up all the shades of meaning, the different layers of the message? Might they see, hear and understand more if they gave their full attention to the speech, and then blogged a few minutes, hours or even days afterwards? Maybe what we need is a blend of Fast blogging and Slow blogging. Already some bloggers are coming to that conclusion. Read more about this at Blog Herald. Or at Fringe Hog. And let us know what you think...