Incredible Weekend

I admit, when I took off to the Digital Classics Association conference on Thursday night, I was unsure.  Why was I going to this?  I mean, I was interested in Digital Humanities, but was it really worth me driving to Buffalo?

Short answer: YES.

Long answer:  It was amazing.  Another one of those, "No, you are not crazy!" experiences.  There were awesome people, young and old, coming together to discuss Digital Classics, and the amazing projects that we've been developing.  From amazing maps like Pleiades, the Ancient World Mapping Center, and ORBIS to ways to develop and use digital literacy with your students to projects like Mapping Mythology. 

The two days were filled with amazing conversations, and I got a lot of interest in what I do with the Pericles Group and ideas of ways to collaborate with the incredible projects I saw, as well as people who wanted me to collaborate with them and work with them on their own projects.  Mind you, these were people young and old--from those just starting out as teachers to those who had been in the field for a while.

As my co-presenters and I discussed, the Classics world, and the Humanities world in general, is changing.  No longer is the "brilliant professor" or "brilliant person" an academic holed up in an ivory tower, but a playful, altruistic person, interested in making the connections that need to be made. 

Connections happened all over the place.  I met up with my professor from college, met several friends of friends, had wonderful conversations which ended in enthusiastic promises to keep in touch, and Gerol introduced me to 4 amazing people, 2 of whom know a very good friend of mine as well.  (We discovered this by accident!!)

So, this brings me back.  How do we make those connections, keep them up, and work with the altruism and collaboration that we are slowly beginning to embrace?

Gerol and I were discussing the Network.  Especially now with electronic network, what can start as a tenuous connection can grow stronger as you realize what you have in common with others.  I know this seems obvious, but now that we don't have to write and read zillions of letters, we can maintain more connections and they can grow more quickly. By working in the digital humanities, are we explicitly in the business of making connections? 

So, what is it that we can do to get this started?