Over the last 6 months or so I have been quite engrossed speaking with alll sorts of people who decidedly don’t consider themselves bloggers. I often follow-up their immediate gut-reaction with a question, “What’s a blogger?” It seems that there’s an image problem with blogging, and not from the credibility side.

The problem, actually, is with the profile of blogging activity and the mindset of the blogger. For many looking in from the “outside” – drawn to the fences by mainstream and trade coverage of the wonders and merits of this thing called blogging, they’re completely baffled “how to do it”. There’s no easy answer, but presumably lots of “wrong” ones. Should there not be an on-ramp? Don’t we need time to let groups and organizations find their voice. We’re all born with one as individuals – that’s harder to coordinate inside an organization.

I came across this post on the 6apart site the other day:

Busy CEOs don’t always have time to do all the homework and writing for a blog all by themselves. If you acknowledge the team that helps write a blog post, just like you’d acknowledge people who help do research for a presentation or a business meeting, it’s completely okay to have people contribute to a blog that’s “by” a CEO.

Six Apart – Movable Type News – Another Sacred Cow Debunked: You Don’t Have to Write All Your Posts

It got me to thinking how much we, the people inside, tend to segment ourselves from them, the people outside. It happens everywhere and in everything, so it’s no surprise. But perhaps we’re setting ourselves up for a resounding thump – trying to carry a handful of water across a desert.

What would the next generation of blogging look like without our encouragement and guidance? What will it look like with it?

Update: Ironically enough, I had this tab open and didn’t read it.  This seems to drive at what I’m wondering about:

The powerful have a greater stake in the perpetuation of an innocent fraud than do the powerless. Long after the powerless have suspended their suspension of disbelief, the powerful will continue to hold tightly to the fraud, repeating it endlessly amongst themselves in an echo chamber that provides a false ring of truth.

Nick Carr, “The Great Unread”

technorati tags:, ,