First Annual Palousitics Blog Fest/Christmas Party

Last night's First Annual Palousitics Blog Fest/Christmas Party was a huge success! 18 Palousitics contributors, commenters, and lurkers from all walks of life gathered at Pullman Grill and Bar to put the faces behind the names and socialize.

Scotty had to leave very early on official duties. But here is your The PES lineup from last semester, the Dynamic Duo, Batman and the Boy Wonder!:


At one point, The Red Knight wondered if we should all be in one room together. Paul Zimmerman agreed, saying a "Godfather Part III" style helicopter hit on the restaurant by the liberals could whack all of Pullman's conservative leadership in one fell swoop!

Here I am with our two national media celebrities and heroes of free speech, Danny Schanze, WSU College Republicans Political Action Chair, and Dan Ryder, Vice Chairman of the Washington State College Republican Federation:



I'm very proud of all the WSU CRs and was glad that many of them could make it last night.

And here is what local left-wingers would consider to be the Axis of Evil in the Pullman-Moscow area, blogger Dale Courtney of Right Mind and myself:



Dale is one of the "blogfathers" of Palousitics, being a big influence and inspiration when I first got started. Of course, I should have invited TV Reed to come also. There would be no Palousitics (and no party last night) without PARD's jihad against Wal-Mart.

I really consider it an honor to be able to call all these people my friends.

As Josh pointed out, Palousitics has become a portal to issues that affect the community and brought like-minded people together who have shown their potential to work toward a common goal. From Wal-Mart to local elections to taking the WSU CRs fight for free speech and academic diversity and tolerance to the national stage, TOGETHER WE HAVE MADE A BIG DIFFERENCE!! And we're not done yet. As we dicussed last night, the battle over Wal-Mart continues, the CRs battle must be kept going (and funded, please click on the WSU logo at right and consider making a donation), and bringing forward the need to widen US 195, which has claimed so many lives in the last few weeks.

Joe Carter, at the Evangelical Outpost blog, came up with the excellent "5/150 Principle:"

But having a larger audience doesn't necessarily translate into having more influence. As Malcolm Gladwell argues in his book The Tipping Point, the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship is about 150. In blogging terms, this means that when your readership grows, you're ability to have a true one-on-one relationship with them decreases significantly. This is not to say that you should attempt to limit your readership to 150 readers, turning people away when that number is reached. What it means is that if you want to maximize your personal influence you would focus on establishing strong bonds and deep interaction with at most 150 readers.

Now consider what would happen if each of these 150 readers read and thought about what you wrote on your blog for five minutes every day. Five minutes may seem insignificant but it has an exponential effect: with only 5 minutes every day, six days a week, every month, you will have the reader's attention for more than one entire day--26 hours--every year. With only 150 consistent readers you will have gained the equivalent "mindspace" of one person for one entire day for almost five straight months. This is what I call the "5/150 Principle": capturing the mindspace of 150 people for 5 minutes can create an astounding opportunity for influence.

The latest stats of 273 unique visitors a day with an average visit length of 4 minutes and 9 seconds show that Palousitics is reaching the goals of Carter's "5/150 Principle" and we are now focusing on establishing the strong bonds and deep interaction to continue working on positive change for Pullman, WSU, and the Palouse.