Blogging in a Fishbowl?
September 25, 2008A Personal Reflection on my Blog Network
I plan to divert a little from the assigned topic on blog networks for Week 7 of FOC08. This post will be a little longer than usual too. Please indulge me.
I’ve been blogging on an off since April, 2005. When contemplating this task, I began to reflect on my own experiences over the last three and a half years, and wonder whether my own blog is insular or part of some wider network.
In one sense, I feel that it’s quite insular – a lone voice in the ether where I add tid-bits of information and collect random thoughts. I wouldn’t be the first blogger to wonder: if a blog falls in the forest …
I’ve received only just more than a handful comments over this time. My blog doesn’t receive a lot of traffic – somewhere in the vicinity of 350 page views per month. And from what I can tell, there are just a few repeat visitors – mostly from some of my ‘real life’ friends like Nick and Marty. I guess this is in itself a small network or blogging community. It allows me to keep tabs on Nick as he is bobbing across the Atlantic and still feel someway connected to him. It also let’s me discover what delicious vegetarian recipes Marty has concocted and how his running is going.
On the other hand, I keenly feel how connected my blog has allowed me to be in a much wider network and community. As a direct result of blogging I have formed a number of significant relationships and joined a number of new networks.
Before I started blogging, I was following another of my ‘real-life’ friends Tony. He is friends with Johnnie and Hugh. From there, I started following other blogs and following threads that interested me. A lot of these are listed in my blogroll.
As a consequence of following, reading, absorbing, learning – I began to reorient my career towards the things I was becoming more interested in – the intersection of technology and the human side of business.
From Johnnie’s blog, I discovered Anecdote and
after reading and responding to a post on their blog, I ended up working with them. Perhaps I’m biased, but I think the Anecdote blog is one of the best examples of a niche business blog on the web. I witnessed first hand the power of building a community around that blog and the brand. I have learnt a great deal from reading it and from Shawn and Mark who write it.
My work with Anecdote extended my network and connections with other bloggers – like Nancy White, Patrick Lambe, James Robertson and Matt Moore whose work (and blogs) I admire a lot.
I was fortunate to be able catch up with Johnnie in person when he visited Melbourne on holidays recently. With Tony, we enjoyed a casual lunch by the river and chatted for a long while.
That meeting felt like a fateful event – like I’d come full circle and connected some loose ends.
Johnnie commented (I’m para-phrasing here and hopefully not talking out of step) that he also sensed a ‘community’ of like-minded people that share similar values about their work that have managed to make connections across the blogosphere. Relationships and connections which are complex, multi-dimensional, intertwined and have manifested in many different ways.
What we have by definition is the same social network: a social structure made of nodes that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, friendship etc.
I also find Downes’ argument compelling, and a useful way of describing the phenomenon that I’m trying to explain:
The community is the network. There is no centralized place that constitutes community, there are only people, and resources, that are distributed, that are all acting on their own behalf and in their own interests … where the network consists of a set of self-selected relations using a variety of contextual information … to establish meaning, and where this meaning not only defines the community but emerges from the community.
I also belong to the Melbourne blogging community. I use the term quite loosely here, but by following other local bloggers such as Cameron, Michael and others, I’ve ended up at a number of face-to-face meetings organised by other Melbourne bloggers and digital media folks and have met a lot of great people. Regular ‘community’ events take place, and I maintain contact with a number of people I’ve met through this network.
Of course, I also belong to a very big network or community of people who choose to blog – the
blogosphere. Getting philosophical: can we not agree as people, to be part of the whole? Quantumly aren’t we all related?
Blogging has also lead to my interest in using other tools and social media, del.icio.us, flickr, podcasts, facebook, twitter – each of which has increased the number of loose connections or weak ties that I have in my network. In turn, there have been many instances where these links have lead to participation in social events, conferences and work collaborations. Most importantly it has created interesting conversations.
When I pause to think about this, I find it quite amazing.
Buddha said: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
Through blogging, I guess I have made my own world. It has lead me to make fundamental changes to the work I do and the approach I take to it. It has also extended my personal and social network beyond the boundaries of where I was once comfortable. I am grateful for the opportunities it has afforded me and for the meaning it has created.
The new learning organisation?
August 21, 2008Edgar Tan writes a nice summary of a recent presentation he attended on the successful use of web2.0 tools in the organisation. He says:
They opened themselves up to question and scrutiny, but by doing so they achieved transparency, alignment, openness and trust … What kind of leaders would open themselves up to such vulnerability in order to see hierarchical structure (ie power) crumble away?
He cites Bonny Cheuk listing the qualities of what she termed Leardership 2.0:
- employee-centric
- listen and value every staff’s inputs
- ready to be surprised
- tolerate mistakes
- hear what you may not like to hear
- genuine dialogues with employees
- willingness to let go of leader’s authority
- leaders have to participate, not delegate
Fantastic! This is the kind of stuff that gets me really excited – the intersection between technology and human potential!
Updating links
June 11, 2008It’s been a long time since I last looked, so I’ve spent some time this morning updating the links page on this site. As you might expect from me, it’s an eclectic mix of stuff: anywhere from facilitation to fast growth entrepreneurship. Hey, it’s what I find interesting! Anyway, let me know if you also find something of interest here or if you’ve got any recommendations. Cheers.
Required viewing
May 26, 2008Watched a couple of really good talks over the weekend. I enjoyed both of them a lot.
Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008: Clay’s talk centers on the notion that in today’s modern society, there is a massive cognitive surplus, or untapped source of brain power. He tries to debunk the often heard phrase aimed at technophiles and ‘geeks’ — “where do people find the time?”
In his presentation he cites some staggering statistics, which are not only compelling on their own, but support his argument well. He calculated the amount of time American’s watch TV to be in the vicinity of 200 billion hours per year, which is equal to 200 wikipedia projects per year. Imagine what we could achieve if we re-directed this type of energy — use this surplus in a more positive way? A thought provoking presentation.
Paul Graham at Startup School 08: Paul’s presentation is an interesting look at why start-ups should not worry about the money too much, and act more like a not-for-profit in the early stages. He argues that being benevolent improves moral; helps you to be decisive and makes other people want to help you.
He recommends the adoption of Google’s “don’t be evil” model, and concludes by urging not to be satisfied with simply ‘not being evil’, but to be good! I found one of the best takeaways was the advice: “Cheap to run = Hard to kill”, sage advice for a start-up, even a micro-one like my own.
Anyhow, go see for yourself.
Finding your voice
April 30, 2008Item 3 in the the Cluetrain Hit-One-Outta-the-Park program for Internet success is: “Find your voice and use it“. I’ve got to find mine again. Lately it seems that I’ve lost my mojo.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been inspired by reading The Dharma Bums and Kerouac’s rambling, spontaneous prose? I’m not sure — I do have an urge to write.
