Don't forget the day job
With a small number of notable exceptions, most bloggers and corporate bloggers have day jobs. I do. Even for the cloggers, their day job probably has little or nothing to do with the fact that they actually blog.
Blogging may, indeed, improve press relations or public awareness or even sales of the widgets or services that their company sells, but - at the end of the day - people blog because they want to share information with others.
It's a compulsion. A hobby. Something to do on the bus. The rest is by-product.
But what the cloggers and bloggers have done by selfishly shovelling ideas into the ether in the vain hope that someone will read them is unwittingly create a private but extensive ideas distribution network.
While 'normal' websites are a forum for ideas to be left for people to find, blogs have been empowered by RSS. The ideas network has been given a way in which to speak to people proactively. My email is no longer what I hanker to launch every morning. It's now NetNewswireLite that gets the virgin click of the day.
What I'm getting at is this: whether a blogger, clogger or pretend blogger who's really a clogger but actually just a glorified marketer, you're part of the network. If you have an idea, sharing it is easy.
Whatever your motives, as a blogger you've created a mechanism for hundreds, perhaps thousands of like-minded people to listen when you say "you know what? I think..."
As long as everyone else remembers you have a day job and - shock horror - a motive, the whole system should remain nice and stable. Whatever the motive, ideas are valuable and made to be shared.
Tagged: blogging corporate blogging
Blogging may, indeed, improve press relations or public awareness or even sales of the widgets or services that their company sells, but - at the end of the day - people blog because they want to share information with others.
It's a compulsion. A hobby. Something to do on the bus. The rest is by-product.
But what the cloggers and bloggers have done by selfishly shovelling ideas into the ether in the vain hope that someone will read them is unwittingly create a private but extensive ideas distribution network.
While 'normal' websites are a forum for ideas to be left for people to find, blogs have been empowered by RSS. The ideas network has been given a way in which to speak to people proactively. My email is no longer what I hanker to launch every morning. It's now NetNewswireLite that gets the virgin click of the day.
What I'm getting at is this: whether a blogger, clogger or pretend blogger who's really a clogger but actually just a glorified marketer, you're part of the network. If you have an idea, sharing it is easy.
Whatever your motives, as a blogger you've created a mechanism for hundreds, perhaps thousands of like-minded people to listen when you say "you know what? I think..."
As long as everyone else remembers you have a day job and - shock horror - a motive, the whole system should remain nice and stable. Whatever the motive, ideas are valuable and made to be shared.
Tagged: blogging corporate blogging
posted by JON @ 7:37 pm
2 Comments:
I like your thoughts on corporate bloggers - "cloggers," as you call them. I also blog about cloggers (at Business Blog Wire) and agree that the main reason people blog is the simple desire to spread information. (Of course there are usually other reasons as well, including money.)
I think that the exceptions - those without other jobs besides blogging - will become less notable in 2006 as more and more people try to blog for a living.
I share your thoughts on the compelling nature of blogging. I've lost a lot of sleep on many nights because I've just been excited to get up in the morning and blog (not check my email, not check the news, etc.)!
Your enthusiasm is infectious. Must be your tender age.
I have experienced that blogging call a few times. Most recently tonight, when I ran home because I couldn't wait to tell Kalido's Andy Hayler what his head looked like (see post from 3rd Jan 2006).
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