Have you ever gone into a meeting expecting to be enlightened and inspired, but then walked out more confused than when you started?

I had that experience the other day, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

I was asked to be on the "Eat, Drink and Get Published: Blogging" panel earlier this week in southwest Minneapolis, where a few of us spoke to dozen of aspiring bloggers from the Twin Cities area.

The panel was made up of a number of online writers, all of whom have different motivations for pushing their work to the web. On the panel were Chen May and Kay Krhin from the Star Tribune's Cribsheet, Kate Hooper from Mother Words and Stephen Regenold from The Gear Junkie. Jason DeRusha, reporter and blogger from WCCO-TV,  was the moderator.

You would think with a group of people who take blogging so seriously, we'd find a common goal, motivation or purpose. Nope. In fact, the exact opposite happened. We found out that we all used blogs for a different reason and we all defined the craft differently.

Some of us are in it for the money, while others are motivated by passion instead of dollars.

(For the record, I stumbled when Jason pressed me on my definition of blogging success and rambled for about 30 seconds before just saying, "I don't know.")

The fact that we were as disjointed in our missions as we were underscores the  state of blogging. It's an enormous mish-mash of people using their corner of the Web for their own purposes and playing by their own rules.

In fact, as it matures, perhaps blogging simply becomes more of an idea or concept than a fairly standardized medium like newspapers or television.

A blog can survive without a strong business plan; that's not true for any other form of media. Professional journalists work every day with the possibility that one public misstep can get them sued or fired. What's hanging over a blogger's head when he or she is deciding how to tell a story?

Meanwhile, the right blog post can make you a micro-celebrity within hours.

I am as terrified as I am excited to see how blogging evolves over the coming years.

Minnesota blogosphere highlights, lowlights
• The Empty Envelope writes about  an old promotional poster for the St. Paul Winter Carnival from 1937. The Minnesota Historical Society provided the material.

• Povert discovers the value in going through old emails to take an introspective look at your former self.  He posts a full email that he wrote to a friend on Sept. 12, 2001.

• A Nod To Nothing and An Amber Colored Life post very different reviews of the new Burlesque show at the Ritz Theatre in Minneapolis.

• Cheleblog looks deeper at why people dream  so often about the home that they lived in growing up.

• Hatesexy puts a lot of thought into a post about Facebook and how it has fundamentally changed our culture and the way we operate day-to-day.

• Ever see someone at work or out in public eating or licking their hair? Sarah explains why this is becoming more common.

Worth reading
Write your passion. It's the first rule of writing. So, if your passion is food, it's time to chow down, right?

I've been enjoying the Epic Sandwich blog lately, a site which reviews sandwiches at different restaurants around the Twin Cities.

Author Teddy describes himself as "a 26-year-old Minnesota boy with aspirations of owning my own restaurant or store that truly celebrates my obsession with food."

What a great reason to start a blog.