I just came across a beautiful presentation on my favorite presentation sharing site slideshare.net.
This presentation provides practical advice for people who write blogs (or want to). It's an example of beautiful design and effective communication.
Enjoy
Just over a year ago, I started writing this blog. I started it as an experiment. I've always been interested in technology and especially interested in knowledge management, sharing and innovation. I wanted to find out more about what Web 2.0 was all about.
And so I signed up for a free Blogger account and started writing.
I've learned a few things about the experience.
First, my writing sucks. But I think it's getting better. I'm trying to use 5 words where I used to use 10. I check my spelling. And I've learned that errors jump off the page only after I hit the "Publish" button.
Writing a blog (on an almost daily basis) is a selfish thing to do. It's my alone time. This is my time to reflect on the day's events, what's going on in my life and what's going on all around me. It's time set aside for me to reflect - to assess what I've learned or observed that day. Frankly, it's a habit I've only recently developed. It's for me.
As I write this, I'm the only one awake at our house.
As a product of the TV generation, I've invested a large portion of my life in front of a television. While much of that time was enjoyable, it was time spent emotionally reacting to content, laughing, crying, getting angry - not much time spent thinking or analyzing. Blogging has helped me appreciate the power of reflection and introspection. (I call it Webtrospection.)
Maybe I'm just getting old.
At the same time, blogging is a selfless act. I'm sharing these thoughts with subscribers and anyone else who happens to trip over my blog. I don't have any expectations. I don't expect anything in return.
If someone finds a thought or observation useful, fantastic. If this entry encourages someone to start blogging themselves, that's terrific.
Our grandparents used to relax on the front porch, observe their world and converse with neighbors as they walked by. To some extent, blogging is today's equivalent of sitting on the front porch. You meet some new people, enjoy some old friends, share some stories.
I've also learned that the blogosphere (I hate that word) contains some fascinating characters with radically different lives and disparate points of view - an infinite number of "channels", waiting to be discovered. My number of RSS feeds grows with each passing week.
There are a lot of interesting people out there.
And so the experiment I started a year ago, to better understand blogging and the Web 2.0 experience will continue.
It's been an interesting experience with many unexpected benefits.
I've only recently begun blogging. I started because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. After all, it's reported that thousands of blogs are started every hour. (I suspect that an equal number die each hour as well.)
I think that many blogs have the same lifespan as fruit flies.
That said, I've learned a lot about my writing style by blogging. I wish I was better at it. And I think it would be an interesting experiment if our high school students used blogging as a tool to hone their writing skills.
After all, the next generation will be communicating in "chunks" - snippets of information typically used in web communications. And I think that as Web 2.0 entrenches itself in our society, effective writing will be an even more valued skill than in past generations.
Here are four things I've learned from my blogging experience, so far.
1. Completely coherent thoughts (in draft mode) somehow become obscured as soon as I hit the "publish" button. I need to re-read everything I write. I probably re-edit 80% of my posts after they've been published.
2. My spell checker only catches about 90% of my spelling errors. I'm on my own for grammatical errors.
3. I use 20 words when 5 will do. Brevity is an art.
4. I'm not as interesting as I think I am!
After learning these lessons, I wince when I think of how many emails I've written and how many PowerPoint presentations I've composed over the years. Had I the opportunity to learn these lessons earlier, I might have saved myself some embarrassment and been a more effective communicator.
So, lobby your schools to introduce a blogging class. Effective writing is a skill that will serve your kids well over time. And a little reflection and introspection doesn't hurt either.
