In the last week I’ve twice been described in introductions to people as “Don blogs” – another one went “you’re the person who blogs”.
It’s as if by blogging someone can draw some conclusion about me from that fact – regardless of what I write about.
I did a quick search for blogito ergo sum – “I blog therefore I am” – apologies to Descartes – but I’m not the first here (rarely have been)
Maybe you can tell something about someone who blogs? – but when I think about the range of people whose professional blogs I read there doesn’t seem any common stereotype which could be applied.
So why the “you blog therefore you are…….” perhaps it’s just part of the process we need to go through until it becomes a more common activity, or perhaps it’s just another convenient/shorthand way to characterise people in this busy world we live in?
Or maybe by blogging you really are…………………………………….?
This has crossed my mind too – all the people who blog, and blog, and blog. All their pictures, videos, friends, stories and music are online and shared. What happens if we lost the internet overnight? Would they cease to exist?
Beisdes, the vast majority of people I meet still say, “You have a blog? What a geek!”
For me it’s simply down to either people’s prejudice against any form of technology (a machine?! a machine?!), or their lack of understanding of what a blog actually is (i.e. it’s actually nothing to do with technology, it’s all to do with who you are, what you’re thinking and the conversations you are choosing to hold).
Some people I have known in the past have introduced me with the caveats of “the drummer”, “his wife is French”, “he speaks foreign languages”, “he blogs”, “he’s a teacher”… (the last one tends to kill any conversation at a party). I don’t take offence at it, but do think it’s more a reflection on the lack of understanding or interesting things to say of the person introducing me.
We’ve all seen this past week the ease with which we apply labels to people to try to make sense of something we don’t understand. Just because I am x, y or z does not make me a, b or c. It’s vital that we don’t let people get away with generalisations or labeling of things and people out of context, when it serves no purpose other than to fill awkward silences.
And if you want to show what bloggers are all about just take a look at these desktops of some educational bloggers – you could hardly say they were geeks 🙂
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2007/07/03/match-the-blogger-with-their-desktop/
Most people I meet have no idea what a blog is – and even less interest in finding out – until I give them examples of how it has been of benefit. I can share my thoughts with a wider audience than would be otherwise possible, I can tap into other people’s thoughts and ideas from their blogs which has actually led to a collaboration project, and for my clients ( should they choose ) it is a way of getting a wider sense of me and what I do.
Nothing geeky about that!
Keep blazing that trail Don.
Don, with my geography hat on I’ve started making up a Google map of where in Scotland the education bloggers I read come from-details and a link is on the Geography page of my blog. It’s not (yet) a representative sample, but the distribution pattern is quite interesting, with an epicentre in Haddington and Musselburgh-that may reflect my own reading, of course. the 1st blog I read was Ollie Bray’s from which I then got a large number of subsequent links, notably through Exc-el. It’s an ongoing project and it will be interesting to see how the map fills out over time.I hope to add students’ blogs to the map soon….