"Why should I blog?""How the hell would blogging help my organization?"
"Can't I hire someone to blog for me?"
"I hardly have time for 'real' work, why would I waste my time blogging."
"Blogging is for people who sustain themselves on HoHo's and Diet Coke and live in their grandmother's basement."
These are actual quotes from people I have spoken to about blogging recently.
I've been thinking a great deal lately about blogging, and it's importance as a medium not necessarily for marketing but for delineation.
As we progress into the deciduous and ever-evolving landscape of the social web, blogging has, in a way, been relegated to the margins of social web status. When I was in 5th grade in our school cafeteria, there was a table towards the back, furthest from the teachers, where all the cool, rich kids would sit with their Cheetos and their slick hair and their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pez Dispensers. At the time, I would have choked a baby bunny to sit at that table, but there were only so many seats, and I was still 20 lbs overweight and didn't know who Michael Jordan was. Now the cool kid table is all Twitter and Brightkite and Foursquare and virtually every iPhone app...but poor blogging is like me, fat and alone with his cheese sandwich, ruing the day he left home.
Well, I am here to tell you, that blogging is still cool, dammit! In fact, I would postulate that blogging should not supplement, but should indeed serve as the foundation, the very substratum of our communication strategy. It's less about marketing and more about delineation. You have something important to say and chances are even if we work in the same field, you have an uncommon perspective that is unique and possess a viewpoint that is indigenous to you alone.
If you read nothing else in this post, the takeaway is this: Blogging affords us the opportunity to define the textures of our dissimilarity.
Inspired by blogging and all it's resplendent geekness, I have posted a video for the handful of you that didn't fall asleep while reading this rant ;)
If so, why do you value blogging?
On a side note, in June, my friend, Daria Steigman (who is infinitely wiser than I on this topic), wrote an article for the International Association of Business Communicators on the notion of "Blogging for Business Value". I would definitely suggest reading her post as it has served as the inspiration for my obsession with this topic over the last few weeks.
Photo by: Kristina B
