Right now, I have a massive folder of blog posts, articles, and clipping that all caught my eye as some point. New technologies (like Joost - TV on your PC), marketing techniques using Second Life, and more are all waiting to be thought through and distilled. So, what to do with all the information so it doesn't stay buried on the hard drive? Why not blog it?!
That got me to thinking...what is the real purpose of a blog? I know by definition it is a self publishing tool, but I want to take a deeper look at its real purpose. Is it a venue for creation of new ideas, for creating dialogue to debate new ideas, or the simple aggregration of knowledge seen around the web and the author puts their own spin to it. So, is a blogger a philosopher, debater, or reporter? What should I be?
The Philosopher: A thinker or philosopher exists in their own mind, kicking around ideas, and distilling them to a point to be shared. These brillant people can connect lots of disparate information and create "new thinking" that impacts the world.
I think about books like "In Search of Excellence", "Good to Great", and other milestones in business thinking, and wonder if these books could have been slowly created via a blog. Could you see Peter Drucker, Michael Hammer, Tom Peters, or Jim Collins willing to debate on-line about their ideas?
So I went to JimCollins.com. Jim Collins wrote "Good to Great" and co-wrote "Built to Last." I have seen is articles in Fast Company, and other leading journals. Now, I don't know Jim personally, but looking at his website confers one thing: I am here to help you. I am the teacher, you are the student. Now read my ideas and apply them. On-line tools like blogs provide another venue to spread their ideas.
The Debater: The debater uses blogs like the forums in Ancient Greece or the Cafes in Revolutionary France to kick around ideas and explore what is right. I think they pose certain questions, add their insights, and allow people to become part of the conversation. They encourage participation of the community.
As I have explored the blogosphere, I have found a number of blogs I really like. Joe Jaffe's blog, "Jaffe Juice", and C.C Chapman's blog, "Managing the Grey," rank as some of my favorites, as well as "For Immediate Release" by Neville and Hobson. Each of these experts create conversations and try to include others to explore social media for themselves. I first tried out blogging based on C.C. Chapman's call to "just do it."
While I love the participation for blogs, I wonder if they can be used to create new knowledge. I see a lot of people post to get attention to themselves and their blogs and get higher on the search engine results. This may seem a bit jaded, but how can you keep a community focused to create new knowledge? How do you get the right people in the right place to debate ideas toward a meaningful end.
The Reporter: The last areas of blogs that I see is someone acting as a reporter. There are so many ideas and blogs floating around that someone needs to make sense of the mess. I look at blogs that just report what others say, or a list of links of interesting stuff.
I love bNet. I provides a lot of good information. It helps me learn new tips, stay in touch with new ideas, and otherwise "stay in the loop." I have picked up lots of tips and tricks from bNet, watched podcasts they posted, and learned a lot. I think about it as an aggregator of content. I works for me, and I read it as much as Jaffe Juice.
So, WHY AM I RAMBLING about this? For my own blog, I want to be a Debater but I have no one in my virtual "coffee house" to bang around ideas. So, do I turn into a thinker or a reporter? Or do I try to go find a crowd? That is the challenge I am facing.
Let's take it one step further... What about businesses? Why should they blog internally? Is it to report what is going on? Is it to share ideas? Is it to spread new knowledge? I think all these "use cases" can apply. I think if businesses really stop focusing on the technology (blog) and start focusing on its use (creating conversations about new ideas.) Could this replace e-mail and hallways as a place for conversation?
I'm not sure. What do you think?
