How to ‘Blog’!?
For my first post here I did a little research on the ‘MofM way to blog’. And my general opinion is that a lot of posts are of interesting academic value, but at the same time often relatively dull. This last remark to my relief, because I often find it hard to be original. Still, all work and no play, makes Jack a dull blogger, right..
As I was browsing through the blog wondering about how to define some things such as ‘blog’ or ‘blogger’, I was thinking:
‘A blogger is a really cool person,
that vigorously posts one faultless,
interesting, artistic piece of writing
after the other’, mmm kay..
Luckily I stumbled upon MofM blogger Chris Castiglione‘s broad definition of ‘blogger‘ that he added to Wikipedia.
In short:
Just by looking at the variety of personal and professional motivations for blogging and the variety of political, economic and social backgrounds, it is difficult to define the word ‘blogger’.
The seeming truth that there is no right way to blog left me quite unsatisfied. When looking further on the web I found Dutchproblogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth‘s, Dig through the clutter: 40 must-reads for extraordinary bloggers.
Until tip 10 the list is mostly about how your blog looks, but after that tips focus more on content and workflow. Though I think everyone will like different tips, at this moment I’m working with no. 13 about batch-processing and productivity, which basically focuses on the broader scope of planning your online activities on social networking sites, blogs, comments, etc., while not losing time just hanging around.
Another blogging tip from an insider: 9 things to do to make sure your next blogpost is read by more than your mom. Hi mom!
Besides blogging for myself, I also want to ‘blog’ in the name of an (online) television program I’m working on. For the program I’m going to blog with music bands that participate and viewers that can comment.
Managing my online communication will be one of the core factors to its degree of success (in terms of popularity), seeing that I’m going to involve a website and several social networks, and will have to tweet, post (video)blogs, write comments, mail, and work with deadlines..
With social networks less is more. It seems to me that it’s worse to have a twitter or myspace account, and not actively work with it, than to not have it at all, especially if you are working on either ‘personal branding‘ or a product such as a band. Or in this case a Television program that depends on online interactivity.
To make communication as efficient as possible at the moment I’m checking out Nimbuzz, which makes it possible to run a couple of social networks at the same time on one platform, hence one contact list, and one login. Anyone using it?
The music bands I’m working with for the pilot are Amsterdam based Punky Donch, and Madrid based Iratxo. By the end of October the first (pilot) program should be finished. Then I can elaborate on the exact motivation behind and content of the program in more detail and start the process of finding new bands for the project in the summer of 2010.