I love blogging. It has literally changed my life. It has changed the way I think, work, communicate and live. I’ve said it before but even if no one was reading this blog I would still write and publish here.
Because of my love of blogging and experimenting with the tools that are out there, I was thrilled to be interviewed by the awesome guys over at Zemanta.
I won’t post the whole interview here but I want to pull out a few parts where I talk specifically about blogging. If you want more go read the whole interview.
Z: What’s your opinion on the value and place of bloggers in the current media environment?
T: I think there are two ways to look at the value of bloggers. I may be rephrasing the question here, but it’s more about the value of blogging. On one hand, I feel like I get a lot of value through blogging, possibly more than my readers do. That’s because it’s almost part of my thought process now. I really enjoy the ability to express myself and taking some of these raw ideas, theories or concepts that I’ve been working on and writing them out in a blog post kinda forces me to think them through a little bit deeper.
On the other hand, there’s the value blogging adds to space – I’m not a news blogger, I don’t blog about necessarily current topics per se, that’s probably a whole different discussion point. But I think that bloggers like myself, who are perhaps more thoughtful, maybe add a different level of value in that they’re really talking about how things work. I don’t know if what I write is agreed with, but it’s a discussion. It sparks debate, it sparks thoughts. The value isn’t just in “hey, here’s what’s happening”. Where bloggers like myself try to add value is more in “what does it really mean” - to you individually or you as an organization or to the industry. It’s “what is” versus “what could be”.
Z: What do you absolutely love about today’s blogosphere and what bothers you?
T: I think what I absolutely love is just the cacophony of voices out there. The fact that you have so many different opinions and anyone can have a say in anything that’s going on. It’s the pure democratization of ideas. That’s probably what I love and hate. It’s the blessing and the curse. Everyone’s being heard and it’s driving a huge change globally. We’ve seen that in a lot of places – information, when it’s free, it’s hugely powerful. I think the downside of that is there’s still a lot of hate and bigotry out there. A lot of narrow-minded people. People tend to get very polarized – there’s a right way and a wrong way or there’s my way and there’s … I’m all for debate, but there’s a difference between debate and just anger and fighting. There’s a lot of ugliness out there, but I’m an optimist by nature so I think there’s a lot more good than bad. Like I said, it’s a blessing and a curse.
Z: To wrap it up – do you have and tips and recommendations for bloggers out there? Either for people that have been doing it or people who are just starting off.
T: There’s two things I would recommend: one is persistence and the other is consistency. I think blogging is almost the anti-approach right now, a lot of people are ditching their blogs. It is hard to write consistently year over year over year. On my current blog, NewCommBiz, I’ve been writing for about 5 years now. I’ve learned that the hardest thing is just writing. I have a goal of writing about 2 to 3 posts a week. When you have work and family and everything else that ‘s going on, it’s easy to say “ah, I’m just gona let it go,” but I think there’s a huge reward in just sticking with it. It takes time but it pays off. On one level I’m sad when I see people quit blogging. I find someone new on Twitter and start following him and click through to their blog to find out it hasn’t been updated in a year and a half. And on one level I’m like “c’mon guys, don’t give up”. I’m not one of those saying that blogging is dying, by any means, but i think the people who stick through it right now, the people who persist and are consistent, are going to get ahead right now. The people that really stick with it are going to see a lot of blog growth, they’re going to see a lot of opportunity for thought leadership or even monetization that the people who give up won’t.
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