We're Gettin' All Crazy Convergent and Stuff

   "Build on a trust that we must stand on..."
                                  -Howard Jones


   When I started banging the keyboard a year and a half ago, I didn't have much of a vision of the future of the Dock Six Chronicles.

   Scratch that.  I had no damn vision.

  At all.

  I figured I'd simply punch out a running commentary on the comings and goings on the Dock and, by extension, the larger community around us.  I thought it might be a good way for all of us who sail off the ghetto dock  to keep in touch, maybe share tips and stories, or something like that.

Then the damn thing blew up.

We now have 50 followers.  Some are even legitimate.

We  have had more than 71 000 page views, and counting.

We have followers and readers on five continents.  Australia, freakin' Australia,  that big -ass island all the way around and under the planet from us,  fer Russell Crowe's sakes,  accounts for a sizable portion of our readership Thanks, mates!

Even Romania accounts for a few hundred views.

And, perhaps the coolest accomplishment of all, we have an acronym.  A follower has dubbed us "D6C".

We have been approached by a handful of internet-based enterprises (perhaps maybe more correctly known as "etherprises" when one examines the depth, breadth and density of the entity, or lack of the aforementioned thereof,) offering a "partnership'" or a "synergy" or a "merging of resources"...

when asked what they bring to our party, the response is largely as substance free as the suitor-organization.
  In other words, they want our content and readership, while offering nothing in return...
Not even a bottle of rum or a six pack of cheap beer.

THAT pisses me off.

 I will happily work cheap, but I won't work free, and I won't sell out the tales from the Dock.

Then, a funny thing happened.  I confronted this dude in the parking lot of the local grocery store.

Let me back up.

Over the last couple of years, I have enjoyed reading an upstart, free, local, alternative newspaper, The Silo . An eclectic mix of local art news, reviews, fun articles, comics, and just plain life, The Silo is a breath of fresh air, filling a niche neglected by the rest of the local media.
Hell, they might not even know this niche exists.  An artsy free paper/website/arts booster here in the land of retirees and farmers?  Yeah, THAT ain't gonna work.
But it has, although not without seriously constant ass-busting by a small and feisty staff who works a hell of a lot harder than any bunch of slackers should.  Coming up with the idea to launch the kind of multimedia  outlet you want to interact with  is easy.
Making it fly takes some serious hard work.  And some fun.

 This summer, for example, the braintrust at the paper came up with a novel idea to get their rag more noticed- they distributed googly-eyeball festooned "pet rocks" at all of their distribution points as paperweights/marketing tools/conversation pieces.

Like this:

It's a low-buck, effective, clever idea that turns a problem (newspapers blowing around their businesses do not make distributors happy, and noone reads a mangled freebie) into an opportunity-( now people talk about the rocks, pick up the paper, etc.)
As a sales and marketing guy, when I saw a car with "The Silo" emblazoned on the side, I wanted to compliment the guy driving on the idea.  He was tight for time, I was tight for time, we just sort of acknowledged each other, I go the e-mail address to fire off a line and...
 I decided to shamelessly plug the blog.
And to invite the publisher, Jarrod, to come on down and join us for a drink.
That was a couple of weeks ago.
This week I submitted the first Dock Six article to The Silo.  We're gonna play this by ear and see how and where we fit together.  it may be a regular gig, it may be an occasional filler article- it goes as it goes.  I'm cool with that.
Turns out Jarrod has ties to the marina, having spent some serious time down here a few years back.  He digs the vibe, and likes what we have going on enough that he wants to share it with his readership.  he thinks we have something to offer.
I think it's kind of cool to bring our burgeoning international success back home on the local level, and explore new audiences.
This is gonna be fun.
So,  thanks to Jarrod and the gang at The Silo for welcoming us aboard. We'll try not to break anything or piss off the neighbours.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone for hanging with us.

"Talk the Dock!"