The Oslo Blog Gathering 2010

There are some people in this world who has got an amazing passion for what they do, and who will go to great lengths for what they burn for and believe in. Renny Bakke Amundsen from RennyBA's Terella seems to be such a person.

This summer, he will be arranging the Oslo Blog Gathering, a five-day event for bloggers from all over the world. The Gathering will take place on August 18-22. This will provide a great opportunity for bloggers to meet up, make connections and the aquaintance of other fellow bloggers, and enjoy the city of Oslo in good company. If you are interested, please check out the website of Oslo Blog Gathering.

If you are not already familiar with Renny's blog, I urge you to check it out. He's writing extensively and in an interesting way on a lot of topics concerning Norway and Norwegian culture.

Some noteworthy Norwegian blogs, pt.2

In my post on March 20, "Some noteworthy Norwegian blogs," I mentioned just a few good Norwegian blogs. Of course there are many more.

Lately, I have come across several good photo blogs. The Norwegian photographer Roy Mangersnes got a great blog, Wildphoto, with loads of great nature pictures on it. Not all of them, but most, are from Norway. Visual Norway also got some nice photos, pretty much of anything from the photographer's broken fence to drifting ducks in the pond. Some of the pictures are taken in the city of Bergen, like some really nices ones of the Wharf (Bryggen).

There are several blogs with daily photos from cities in Norway. Here are some of them; Oslo Daily Photo, Trondheim Daily Photo, and Stavanger Daily Photo.

Last time, I mentioned some blogs about Norwegian expats living abroad. There are of course blogs from "foreign" expats living in Norway. One of these is Irish Nomad in Norway, by freelance writer Johanna C. Leahy. Johanna blogs quite enjoyably about expat life in the capital of Norway with her four kids. Another one by an American expat in Oslo is called An American in Norway.

As a last blog, even though it is not about Norway, I would like to mention Beer, Maine & Me, which got a post about "beer in unique places (Honningsvåg, Norway)". Since I went to high school in Honningsvåg, I thought this was kind of amusing. The World's northernmost beer brewery, opened in 2000, is actually situated there.

Some noteworthy Norwegian blogs

Norway is a small stretch of land, but there are a lot of blogs out there concerning themselves with our little country. And a lot of them are in English. Here is an overview of but a few that I think are worthy of a visit or two.

Photos from northern Norway features breathtakingly beautiful pictures from the northern region of Norway. The nature is in itself beautiful up there, and this photographer, Thomas Laupstad, really knows how to capture that beauty. Some of the pictures are also quite unusual and fascinating, like a closeup of a housefly or little sprouts coming up through the snow. Visit this site, and the next thing you'll do is to buy yourself a plane ticket to Norway.

RennyBA's Terella is another very noteworthy site. This was actually one of the finalists for best European blog on Weblogg Awards 2007. RennyBA blogs about anything Norwegian - culture, food, traditions, and history in a very personal manner. His site also contains a lot of great pictures.

Two blogs that I find appealing are South Africa and Becoming Imigrant. Both blogs are written by Norwegians living with their wives and family abroad - in South Africa and Brazil respectively. In South Africa, Jonny Stensby is blogging about anything and nothing, at times being very witty. Often he is on the philosophical side, reflecting upon life, existence, and basically anything else, from emigrant hairdressers to the possibility of calculating the existence of God. Becoming Imigrant is not as obviously funny, but it definitely got it's (mostly understated) humor. The blog is all about the author's life as an imigrant to a foreign country with his brazilian wife, "living in the energy where two cultures collide."

Some reflections on navels and the souls of peoples..

When I started this blog, it was as an attempt to keep in touch with what happens back home. Yesterday, I noticed some sites written by people living abroad, away from their home countries. Two of these were www.iliveherenow.com and Travels in Time.

I really enjoy to read about how other expats are living. Reading through these sites, I noticed that, they all concern themselves with the places where these people are living. As you would expect. This made me think, about my own blog, and a little about us Norwegians.

When you live abroad, away from home, in a country where thing as not the same as home, it gives you a great opportunity to reflect upon yourself as an individual and a member of your nation, in my case as a Norwegian. You see things that are different from home, and you suddenly notice things about your home country that you haven't before. And you see yourself reacting to different circumstances in a way that you maybe wouldn't if you had been at home.

I think that one trait of ours (i.e. of us Norwegians') is that we can be rather self-centered. Take my own blog - I don't blog about the country I am in. I blog about Norway and Norwegians. Instead of taking the opportunity to reflect upon the Czech Republic, where I live right now, I just keep gazing at my own Norwegian navel. And that's they way it is with a lot of us.

I remembered I watched the news on tv some time ago. The reportage was about peacekeeping, or peace diplomacy. Some reporter - a Norwegian one - interviewed Bob Geldof about it, and asked what he thought about the Norwegian peace-keeping and peace-making efforts. His reply was: "So you're fishing after compliments again?" I think that response captured the way we act in a lot of situations pretty well. We basically love to hear how good we are, and how good Norway is.

We truly are a navel-gazing nation.

Back to where it all started - New year's resolutions revisited..

Consistency? Never mind that..

In January, I decided to expand the scope of my blog, as compared to what was the original idea. On further reflection, I do not think that was a good idea.

According to some business theorists, it is essential for any company to have a clear core product. When you start your business, you need to define exactly what your business does or should do. Only with a clear understanding of your business' purpose, and of what it does, it is possible to be really successful.

Take McDonald's. Their core product is hamburger meals served very quickly. That is what people expect when they go to McDonald's. And that is what McDonald's should do well. It is all nice and good with healthier food, sundaes and salads, coffee and cupcakes, etc., but the main reason most people come to McDonald's is the quick burgers. If McDonald's should cease to serve the quick burger meals, it would stop delivering it's core product, and people would stop coming there. (Actually, as a digression, this has happened. I went to McDonald's the other day to get a hamburger meal. But since it was early in the morning, they only served toasts - it was "breakfast time". I was disappointed. They did not serve their core product. I will not go to McDonald's in the morning again.)

According to the same principle, I think I need to have my "core product" a little more clearly defined with this blog. And that "core product" is once again random thoughts on topics related to Norway or Norwegians. It is a wide subject, but nevertheless a subject, and a quite clearly defined one.

So, from now on; Random Thoughts On Norway. For my random ravings on other topics, I have created a new blog, titled "Nomadic mind".

Bloggers, a.k.a. Parasites?

I read an interesting story on the Online Journalism Review today. The article is titled "Are blogs a 'parasitic' medium?", and is a response to the question if bloggers simply are leeching on honest, hard working field journalists. The author does not think so, and I agree.

In the article, associate professor at Medill School of Journalism, Rich Gordon, said that the accusation of being parasitic only refers to one type of blog, namely blogs that "comment on matters of public interest that are typically covered by mainstream media." According to that, I guess this blog would be directly hit be those accusations. I openly admit that a lot of my postings are comments on things that I have read elsewhere. And without those, I don't think I would have written a whole lot.

Still, I do not think that blogs that simply refer and parrot other stories would be very successful or interesting. And most blogs that do refer to articles written by others, could be compared to opinion pieces or reflections. It is the reflections that is the essential part of these blogs. So with this one.

I do not think there is any conflict of interest between blogging and original reporting. They are different types of media, and they have got different purposes. Blogs commenting on other stuff could obviously not exist without its origin of inspiration. But the relationship could be viewed as symbiotic rather than parasitic, as the article points out. Blogs could never replace the invastigative field journalism, neither should they. But to comment and reflect on it is, in my opinion, completely legitimate. And when the sources are cited, as they definitely should be, they could channel more readers to the articles commented upon, rather than "drain" anything from them. Thus, both the blogs and the original sources, whether in print or online, gain by this relationship.

New year's resolutions? Not really..

As we pass into a new year, it is, I guess, the time for making all sorts of promises and new year's resolutions. For this blog, maybe it would be a good thing to make a new year's resolution that I will write more. That I won't do, because I'm not sure how long it will hold out. But I will at least try to be more active and write more. But no promise...

To make it easier to do that, I have renamed my blog. It's new name is simpy "Random thoughts of a Random Norwegian." Although it will probably be concerned to a large extent with Norway-related subjects, I will not anymore limit myself to that subject. So from now on: random thoughts on any subject.

Happy new year!

Boredom, or the lifeblood of a blog?

When I think about it, I think boredom was the thing that brought this blog into life. We had a really slow day at work, because our computer system was down, and we couldn`t really get that much work done. So out of boredom, I decided to create this blog. I`ve been thinking about it, though, for a while, but boredom was the spark that made it come to life.

I hope not, though, that boredom will be the only thing that keeps it going. I don`t make a habit of being bored, so if boredom is to be the sole life blood of this blog, it does not bode well for it. In that case, it will be a short lived one.

To put the words into the mouth of the silent majority...

In one of their songs, the Norwegian (mock-political) metal band Black Debbath declared itself the voice of those who don`t really have anything to say ("Et talerør for de som intet har å si"). That is also essentially the way that I feel about blogs - they are pretty much a device for people to express themselves without really having anything much to say. And with me writing this blog it is going to be the same way, just a string of random, meaningless thoughts, mostly about Norway. Having moved abroad, maybe it`s a nice way to keep involved.. Or something...