Reflecting on blogging itself

I’ve now posted three blog posts and am struggling to find time to write my next post. Why?

One of the premium success factors to a blog (success=being widely read), is regular updates. When starting to write a blog, the challenge is also to find your own voice, your flow. Have I found mine? Or will it change drastically over time? I’ve already had one comment about my posts being “so long” which was a valid remark. It’s also about discipline, not finding the time but making the time.

So, when considering using blogs in education, suggesting to educational staff to publish their thoughts, findings, questions, in a blog, I am now reminded that the challenges to blogging should not be overlooked and tools/suggestions to overcome them should be given, as well as realistic planning. For example, when starting out, a group blog might be the best way to start because as I have been struggling to write my next post, Arif filled the gap with the previous post. Thank you Arif!

I am reminded of a previous group blog initiative I was involved in “I collaborate, e-collaborate, we collaborate”. The group of bloggers invited to write were all members of the ecollaboration group, a then vibrant group of practitioners in the development sector in the Netherlands. Even with such a clearly defined community of practice the blog struggled somewhat in the beginning. Maybe others experienced the struggle differently but I think for me the struggle lay in the question of ownership as well as audience. Who (if anyone) is reading what you write? Reflecting on this experience versus the experience of writing for an intranet, where the audience was clear and you received live feedback from colleagues, makes me consider that maybe having a somewhat dedicated audience in the beginning could possibly increase the success factor of a blog. Although, for some, blogging for peers might be even more daunting than blogging for an anonymous audience…

Which reminds me that this is meant primarily as a reflective blog, so let me go on to finish the blog post I have been meaning to write, whether it is as comprehensive as I would want it to be or not.

… I can’t help myself. One more point to remember, made by Christian Kreutz during a presentation at IICD, which he also refers to in this blog post where he stresses the point of using blogging to increase a two way conversation. That not enough discourse is taking place between blogs. I have failed in this up until now. Note to self: comment more on blog posts of others!