A Bloggers Doubt Regarding Their Value

I've written before (Is blogging self-serving? & Turning others on to blogging) of my friend Kathy and of her starting up her own blog. Initially she was very excited and enthusiastic about writing about her upcoming journey (by herself) to India to do some volunteer work. She set up a beautiful looking blog and began by chronicling her reason for embarking on the journey. With this I finally understood as well. Her family and friends have had great concern over her going to a country that is so different from our own especially during the hot summer months.

We discussed how putting a blog out would not only allow her friends to see where she is and how she is, but also to enlighten others to everything she is going through just in trying to get there. I can't begin to tell you how many shots she has had to take to prevent illness before travelling.

We also discussed that at the end of the journey it would become a wonderful archive of the entire experience which we all know will be life altering. Perhaps she will only help a few to understand her calling, perhaps she will help someone else who is thinking of volunteering too, and perhaps she will be able to write a book at the end. There are so many great things to come from blogging this part of her life.

Now the problem...someone made a comment suggesting that posting a blog was self-serving and self-promoting. The more I do this and the more I read from others, the greater I am completely convinced of the opposite. This tool of blogging is serving a purpose to me of purely learning. I go out and read other's blogs and write my thought about what I read, try to build on them or sometimes just write it into my own words so that I may review it at a later date. Another large purpose I hear over and over is the wonderful networking that comes from reading and commenting on others postings. Many are becoming great friends and colleagues through their blogs.

Now the reason I bring this up again is because it is my little electronic campaign to try and get Kathy to continue with her blog. Continue with the experiment. Continue with the written journey as well as the physical one.

I found a great quote today from Tom Haskin's post Content for our consideration. He too explains wonderfully many of the benefits to posting on blogs. Within his post he says...

"What we are reading in blogs is miscellaneous, as David Weinberger uses the term. We know it's a point of view that considers us all having varied viewpoints. We are not purporting to announce "one right answer", "my way or the highway" or "my expertise overrules all your clueless contradictions".

By being considerate of this context for our content, what we say in our blogs enters into our collective wisdom. It's filed under miscellaneous and accessed by each person's reasons to consider it. We enrich each other's understanding by putting it out there. Instead of each of us getting it right from books, we are collectively getting it appreciated from outlooks."

Tom concludes wonderfully with:

"This change to offering considerate content is deep. We are changing the premises for educating, employing and entertaining us. We are developing contexts for mutual benefit instead of delivering inconsiderate content."

It's incredibly exciting to look at blogging as not only as a tool for one's self, but more so that we can each become teachers, mentors, philosophers and entertainers on a global scale.

Help me to keep Kathy writing, feel free to send me a message to pass to her.

Is Blogging Self-Serving?

I was so excited the other day and mentioned it in a previous post "Turning others on to blogging" . Two days ago my new blogging friend, Kathy, and I were discussing how great I thought her's looked and by reading her first post why I now understood and could stand by her decision to go to India.

The two of us sit about 30 feet from one another in a library setting, but you would never know it's a library as we are running back and forth giddy ("can a thirty something and fifty something be giddy...sure why not?") about something new we've discover to blog, a new title, a new add-in.

This excitement between the two of us was quickly deflated when another co-worker firstly insulted some aspects of her site (he hasn't seen mine yet) and then secondly stated that blogging is nothing more then egotistical and self-serving.

Our backs went up so quickly. How dare he take such a stuffy and limited view of the purpose of blogging. Kathy was now threating to take off her blog before it even really got going.

Egotistic by definition is (dictionary.com)

1. pertaining to or characterized by egotism.
2. given to talking about oneself; vain; boastful; opinionated.
3. indifferent to the well-being of others; selfish.

Sure there are some people out there that only want you to know what they are eating now and how many times they went to the washroom today. But I'm guessing the majority of them truly are portals of information. The blogs I want to read aren't the ones that are talking about themselves "boastfully". The one's I'm looking at and admire are the ones that disseminate a variety of information and experiences that the composer has found truly fascinating and wants to share it.

The definition of self-serving (dictionary.com):

1. preoccupied with one's own interests, often disregarding the truth or the interests, well-being, etc., of others.
2. serving to further one's own selfish interests.

Again the blogs I am looking to for ideas and inspiration are the same ones that are looking to try and help others with "the best of the best" of any particular topic and/or are looking for input and collaboration on a subject. Certainly not the ones that aren't trying to share facts or "the truth". Any blog that might be shamelessly promoting their own self interests is most likely a blog I will never stumble upon, nor will the people I'm looking to in "my blogging community" referencing either.

I am happy to report Kathy's blog is still alive and well and she has a billion new ideas to post regarding her upcoming adventure. Also, for those who would like to discovery a little more on the history of blogging, I found a nice little history and origins at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog.