“Talk To Me,” my new interactive experiment with my blog readers, will hopefully debut on Wednesday at 10 am. September 14th, on Zoom. My tech advisor Andrew and I went through a rehearsal this morning, and we’re doing another dry run tomorrow afternoon, taking turns as participants.

(Above photo: Me and Andrew rehearsing.)

The Zoom meeting platform is simple and unique at the same time. The day before and the hours before the Zoom Meeting begins, I’ll post links for people to use to get to the meeting size. You can cut and paste them or just click on them.

We are setting up a system where you can message me if you have trouble getting on, and I will give you a special access code. Some software and some browsers block Zoom meetings.

You’ll automatically go to a queue on the meeting site, and I will admit you one by one. I’m starting out small wth 12 to 15 people; otherwise, the noise and shouting can overwhelm everyone.

First come, first serve,  the site will be available for joining 15 to 20 minutes before the meeting. Once I welcome you, you can wait until I open the session, and you and I and everyone else admitted will be able to see each other.

I’m not expecting any trouble, but I have good tools to deal with it if it comes. I can mute or remove anyone in a second, and I certainly will if I need to. The idea here is for the people to read the blog to ask me questions and discuss common issues.

Participants can question one another, but cross-joiner arguments are not permitted.

A lot is lost when we can’t see and hear one another in love time. People are always saying things I think are attacks, and I’m wrong, or that I am always saying things other people think are attacks. In my mind, they are often wrong.

There’s a misfire here, which is shared online. This can help. It’s a pretty radical experiment; I’m going to work hard to make it work. We may have to fix and change things as we go along; I’m open to that. And we may not get enough people to justify doing it.

I’ll accept that if it happens.

Beyond that, I want to talk to the people who read me and have conversations about me, them, the blog, where it’s going, and how and why I put it together.

This is a new and radical step for me; I’m not sure how to work it together or how many people will join. I  have scheduled weekly meeting times on Zoom for the foreseeable future. Unlike the radio or the podcasts, I don’t have to do anything but turn on the Zoom meeting and let people in.

You don’t have to do anything but talk and listen. Out of this, I hope to come to a sense of community and trust often missing in detached and dysfunctional online communications. This will be a safe zone. And I will be responsible for that.

Andrew has done a wonderful job helping me set this up and showing me how to make it work. He’s a genius.

So, barring unforeseen tech problems, Andrew and I will be online together, admitting people to the site around 9:45 am. I’m still trying to figure out if people who aren’t admitted can listen; we’re still working on that.

I’m shooting for 45 minutes to an hour, and I’ll invite Maria to be my guest as often as she wishes.

There may be delays of one kind or another, but so far, so good. I look forward to talking with my readers face-to-face, answering their questions, and listening to their perspectives.