I came back from a client meeting today to find 1 person looking for me, and then two people aiming me to let know the first person is also looking for me. Sometimes I hate AIM. Although one day I turned off IM thinking I'd get some work done, but then I got a call to find out where I was.

From Office Space:

Peter Gibbons: You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.\ Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?\ Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.\ Bob Porter: Eight?\ Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

Via Network-Centric Advocacy, I had a small "aha" moment, from a piece they linked to on AlterNet, Blogging While Black. To me, it resonates with why many communications folks within an organization don't know what to make of blogging. Being the Communications Director somewhere means your supposed to be crafting , filtering, and controlling the org's message and outreach. Blogs can be a threat because anyone beyond the anointed can have a voice.

So if anyone can have a voice, how do you control what they say, or how well they say it? In my opinon, you let your experts loose to write about issues you care about, like the Center for Global Development has done (full disclosure: I work with them), and connect more frequently, transparently, and informally, with supporters.

But blogging is not exclusively or primarily about reporting the news; it is fundamentally about grassroots communication between individuals and groups without the filter of government agencies, political parties, corporations and other such entities.

A Uruguayan woman and an American man are being held after two small hotels were bombed in La Paz. Sounds like the bomb blast are at smaller hotels in the city, in "El Centro" of La Paz, themain downtown area. There are 2 casualties and 4 injuries from the first explosion.

The blast, close to government headquarters, occurred late on Tuesday. Hours later, another hotel in the city was rocked by an explosion\

Links:

• CNN
• BBC
• MABB Blog on Bolivia