I have been blogging for some time.
This WordPress blog dates back to June 2008.
I have Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous blog accounts too.
This week a friend, Darrell Cobner, asked me to write about blogging. He is an accomplished blogger and I was delighted that he asked me.
Darrell’s request was for me to address:
- What is blogging?
- Why blog?
- What is the impact?
- What are the rules of engagement?
I started drafting this blog post just after I had read John Kessel’s delightful Celebrating Together post on the USA Volleyball blogs site. His opening paragraph addresses implicitly Darrell’s questions:
Just finished our annual meetings in Salt Lake City, where all the USAV leaders come to share their season’s experiences and best practices and plan ahead to grow the game anew. This being an Olympic Year, our CEO Doug Beal shared a special powerpoint at the Congress, celebrating the achievements of volleyball in the USA, aka USA Volleyball in his State of the Game. It is shared here, since so many of you reading this blog could not be in Salt Lake, yet you are growing the game so well in your part of our nation – we wanted you to celebrate too. CLICK HERE to download and read it, you will learn a lot about how the Team behind the Team, which is all of us, are doing at USA Volleyball.
Explicitly, here are my thoughts on Darrell’s questions.
What Is Blogging?
Wikipedia has a very clear description of blogging:
A blog is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are themed on a single subject.
Stephen Downes adds that:
Though blogs are typically thought of as personal journals, there is no limit to what may be covered in a blog. It is common for people to write blogs to describe their work, their hobbies, their pets, social and political issues, or news and current events.
The uptake of blogging was accelerated by easy to use blog platforms like Blogger and WordPress. Both provided and continue to provide ways for the uncomplicated upload of content. This makes blogging a very personal activity. The author creates, uploads and monitors content of the blog.
In recent years Twitter has made microblogging an everyday activity that enables the exchange of short sentences, web links, and pictures.
Why Blog?
I mentioned John Kessel’s Celebrating Together post on the USA Volleyball blogs site earlier. I return to it here to help explain why blog.
In the paragraph I quoted John makes the following points:
- Just finished our annual meetings in Salt Lake City, where all the USAV leaders come to share their season’s experiences and best practices and plan ahead to grow the game anew.
- Our CEO Doug Beal shared a special powerpoint at the Congress, celebrating the achievements of volleyball in the USA.
- It is shared here, since so many of you reading this blog could not be in Salt Lake, yet you are growing the game so well in your part of our nation – we wanted you to celebrate too. CLICK HERE to download
- You will learn a lot about how the Team behind the Team, which is all of us, are doing at USA Volleyball.
John’s post exhibits two fundamental aspects of the why blog discussion:
- There is an unconditional commitment to sharing experiences and resources.
- The topic is of the author’s choice and narrative style.
I see blogging as a voluntary contribution to a community. Whenever I attend a conference or workshop I blog live so that those not attending can access information if they wish.
An example is my blog posts from the Computer Science in Sport Conference (Special Emphasis: Football) at Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany in 2011.
I blog to share my interests in performance and this leads me to share data from my research activities.
An example is my blog posts about performance at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
What I find particularly exciting about this approach is:
- There is no expectation that anyone will read any post.
- Occasionally people comment on the posts and this leads to thought-provoking exchange.
- It contributes to a world that flourishes through reciprocal altruism.
What Is The Impact?
Blogging offers an immediate way to share information or discuss ideas.
I have posted 619 times to my blog since June 2008. This is a rich record for me of items of interest to me and a cloud resource I draw upon when meeting others interested in learning, teaching, coaching and performance. To date I have had 112,000+ visitors to the site.
I saw a big spike in readership during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Thereafter searches on Google yield some of my posts.
The availability of alerts to blog posts on topics or by a particular author has transformed the impact of blog posts.
In contemplating the impact of blog posts I am mindful of Todd Sieling’s advice about slow blogging.
Slow Blogging is a willingness to remain silent amid the daily outrages and ecstasies that fill nothing more than single moments in time, switching between banality, crushing heartbreak and end-of-the-world psychotic glee in the mere space between headlines. The thing you wished you said in the moment last week can be said next month, or next year, and you’ll only look all the smarter.
I am mindful that if we are to use blog posts as an indicator or reach and impact then we must engage in slow blogging.We must think too about the tags we use to point to the slow blogging outputs.
I think microblogging with Twitter offers an alternative for the immediate response to events.
What Are The Rules Of Engagement?
It is a public space
Back in 2007 Tim O’Reilly suggested that “I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn’t come through any kind of regulation it would come through self-regulation.” One of his seven recommendations was:
Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.
Kate Carruthers’ advice
In my own blog I have an About page. On it I say:
This is a personal blog. Kate Carruthers has a great guide to rules of engagement for personal blogs. I try to follow her rules.
- This is my personal blog and I write it for my own personal satisfaction.
- Readers are encouraged to comment, debate and discuss.
- I moderate all comments and publish most, unless they appear (to my totally subjective gaze) to be defamatory, spammy, hate-mongering, not particularly constructive, or just plain rude/crude.
- It’s fine to disagree with me, but I’m unlikely to publish your comment unless you display a modicum of style and intelligence.
- if you do not provide a real name/identity/email I may choose not to publish your comments.
- Real people who stand by their comments are cool!
- This blog discusses ideas but does not purport to provide formal business, technology, psychology or finance advice.
- Readers should seek (and probably pay for) advice of that nature from a professional source.
- The content on this website is provided “as is” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
- The opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent views of any clients or employers in any way.
- Nothing posted here should be considered official or sanctioned by any of my clients or employers or any organisation I am affiliated with.
- Feel free to quote liberally from this blog if you want – please link back in the best web tradition if you use any material provided here and give credit for material used.
Sharing openly and open about sharing
Richard Byrne has a helpful post from 24 May 2011 that contains some detailed advice about:
- What to do when you see your blog posts being stolen
- What to do if you want to reuse someone’s blog post(s)
In Conclusion
I have written this post from the perspective of a person who seeks to share through blogging. I recognise that there are other motives to blog.
I am excited by the reflective potential of blogs in education and sport settings.
I facilitated a Sport Coaching Pedagogy unit at the University of Canberra last semester. One of the requirements of the unit was to develop a blog as a journal. I have compiled a list of the 60 blogs produced by the students on a Wikiversity page.
Perhaps the next discussion with Darrell will be about wikis … but not before some more of John Kessel’s post:
The final night of meetings before play begins, its the “Boyce Banquet” in honor of Dorothy C. Boyce. Dorothy joined USAV in 1952 as a consultant on women’s volleyball and took on many leadership roles over her 22 years of involvement, including being USAV Vice President for a decade. Traditionally, I sit at the banquet with Mike Hulett, who, if you don’t know of him…well dang it you should. I knew what was coming, as I had contributed a lot of photos of Mike, having been with him for decades as he helped head coach in our USA Paralympic programs. So take time to read the link award below, and watch the video ( CLICK HERE to watch) that I took of his surprise in being honored with USA Volleyball’s highest award, the Frier (named after the USAV leader who almost singlehandedly got volleyball into the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, just one of those things that we all should know and celebrate too…). Mike’s achievements are something we ALL should celebrate in volleyball. Just another thing USA Volleyball does to help volleyball for all, including the disabled of all ages.
Thank you for finding time to read this post. There are some other posts about blogging here.
June 4th, 2012 at 10:13 AM
Hi Keith,
Thank you for the thoroughness of your contribution to VPA.
This resource has certainly assisted my understanding of the importance of blogging.
May I inform readers that this blog is also concurrently live here:
http://keithlyons.me/2012/06/01/blogging-about-blogging
This may house other conversation strings to be aware of…
BW
Darrell
June 6th, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Hi Keith
Some interesting comments and in particular the ‘rules’ suggested by Kate Carruthers should be commended. Too often the web is used as a negative tool but for me, and hopefully others on this site it offers the opportunity to share ideas, experiences and knowledge.
Thanks again
Mark
June 10th, 2012 at 8:41 PM
The discussion continues on Clyde Street with an interesting post about academic blogging
http://keithlyons.me/2012/06/01/blogging-about-blogging
June 28th, 2012 at 6:06 PM
I am not a blogger, and a bit like the way I use Twitter, I’m a lurker (though that does seem like rather a sinister description). But for those who have the skills blogging is a rich medium – and writing a good blog is every bit as demanding as writing for other purposes.
One of the bloggers I do follow is Tom Watson MP, a friend from my youth. Tom’s blog is interesting in all sorts of ways, not least because of the way that he and it have provoked reaction from other bloggers. One political blogger in particular has explained that the motivation for his blog is to “make mischief at the expense of politicians and for the owner’s self gratification”. Public accountability of the powerful is highly desirable – especially when they are elected representatives. It’s also good fodder for political satire. But how do readers know the status and authority of the blog? How do readers know whether the criticism of Tom and his work is fair and reasonable?
In a clumsy way this example illustrates what I think are thought by many to be the two main objections to blogs and blogging in academic work:
(1) the rigour of the blog is sometimes unclear;
(2) the ways that blogs are used are not quality assured.
Keith’s post from a few weeks ago opens up debate about these (and other matters).
Here are some further thoughts:
• In keeping with many contemporary debates about active engagement in the generation and sharing of knowledge, they are participatory and interactive. There’s an important point here. Podcasts, for example, might be more user-friendly to many technologically sophisticated young (and no-so-young) adults at modern universities, but they are still essentially instruments of information-giving. Blogs, like tweeting and other social networking media do create a real forum for dialogue.
• Blogs are immediate and accessible. In some areas of academic life progress can seem painfully slow. By the time research is in the public domain it’s already out of date or even obsolete. By using a medium that allows instantaneous sharing of information, some work can have influence without delay.
• As in other walks of life, blogs cultivate criticality and accountability about research. There are probably more opportunities for researchers to be held to account through an exchange of views or interrogation using blogs than in the system of so-called ‘blind peer review’ that many academic journals use.
• Within certain parameters they grant a freedom of expression that is fair, democratic and respectful. This doesn’t mean that all views expressed are held in the same regard. Reputations do count. But so too does the opportunity to establish credibility. I noticed recently a blogger being asked to make his credentials clear to provide authority for the opinion expressed in his blog.
• There are codes of conduct (as well as the law of the land) to guide and constrain bloggers, but there are fewer ‘rules’ to follow. There isn’t (yet) a way of blogging that prevents those without the know-how from participating. This is liberating and even emancipating for people with something of value to say who lack the know-how to say it using other media.
• Blogs are often personal opinions. As reflective practice gathers momentum in many different contexts (not least for research, learning and teaching), opportunities to share opinions with others are valuable in themselves and also as a stimulus for others.
It’s not all good, of course. As well as the caution about validity and reliability of information shared through the use of blogs, there may be concerns that the medium is deliberately misused. But if we start denying the usefulness of anything to which these criticisms might apply, there would be many other forms of sharing research that would be brought into question.
So here’s my take-home message: blogs can make a useful contribution to academic debate too. (And perhaps I’m now ready to ‘de-lurk’.)
July 6th, 2012 at 2:59 PM
Keith has responded and added to Scott’s comment here:
http://keithlyons.me/2012/07/06/considering-blogging-as-a-scholarly-activity
There are interesting thoughts emerging…