The Goodness of Blogging (for business and otherwise)

In perusing the various magazines I've got sprawled out on my coffee table, I read some interesting articles over the weekend that I wanted to share with you. Backbone has a piece on why CEOs should blog, while Wired Magazine puts it quite bluntly on their front page: "Get Naked and Rule The World" (and there's a photo/rollover to put it in context). The more I read, the more I considered: maybe mainstream business is finally clueing in to the kind of stuff that can be gained from blogging.

Indeed, it seems that blogging about your company is the hot topic these days. On the one hand, you have horror stories about employees getting fired and/or companies getting sued. Some argue (see links) that this trend will continue, and that companies will begin to put employment policies in place to limit what employees can blog about.

While some companies may perceive employee blogs as a threat, I believe that the successful ones will see it as an opportunity. Transparency can be a good thing, for everyone involved: the company, its employees, and even its shareholders. Carol Cain talks about how it can be good for marketing, while an article on the Web Hosting Directory talks about how securities firms are using blogs as a research tool. In fact, some companies have known about the benefits of blogging for quite some time. For example, Simply Audiobooks has been running a staff blog for over a year now.

My Personal Experience

I have been blogging on AOL for about a month and a half now. I wasn't much of a blogger before I started here, and I definitely didn't blog as often as I do now.

Due to my lack of experience, I have approached the task with great care, always devoting some time to basic research on the topic that I blog about. In doing so, I find that I'm learning a lot through blogging; In fact, I have broadened my knowledge in a way that I wouldn't have, if I had spent my time programming instead.

If you're a web developer, you appreciate the importance of keeping up to date with current technology trends (if you don't, you should). Blogging is an excellent way to do this. Even if you secretly think that your knowledge is out-of-date, you'll find that you'll naturally get up-to-speed on the subjects that you choose to blog about.

However, this means that you're going to have to be prepared to take some criticism; when it comes to feedback, the ratio of positive comments to negative ones is usually very low. I actually like criticism, and I wish I got more of it. After all, you only get encouragement from praise, while criticism can actually teach you something.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my blogging experience, and what I've got out of it so far. I personally recommend it to anyone (not just web developers).

I'll end on that note. Think about it!