Having got home last night closer to midnight than 5pm I was, as I’m sure you can imagine lacking a spring in my step. I picked up the post and slumped myself in front of the television with the obligatory cup of tea. Along with the usual tripe that seems to get delivered on a daily basis was the 16th June issue of NMA. Cue the mute of the TV and a concerted effort to concentrate on the pages before me. Truth is, reading when tired is a very interesting experiment – most often I will flick straight through making a mental note of articles to return to. If a piece keeps my attention at a time when my attention span is less than that of a video game addicted goldfish it is more often than not, one of opinion.
On this occasion it was an article by Neil Perkin; ‘Blogging isn’t dead, it’s just growing up’. Agree. Neil raises valuable points around microblogging, time, effort and return. We all have blogs we will return to and follow, and most of us will have seen posts decline or in some cases cease entirely. But as Neil states whether or not this means that microblogging or status updates and killing blogging misses the point completely.
He quotes Steve Bowbrick, BBC Blogs Editor, on how blogs offer maturity, opinion, creativity and authenticity, and while they continue to offer this they will continue to offer social and cultural importanace. Why? Simply because as Neil goes on to point out the blogosphere offers discussion and not only that it offers candid, challenging discussion. It offers debate ‘it’s where arguments gain momentum, where opinion builds, where thinking evolves, changes, pushes forward’.
According to Neils article traffic for news blog The Huffington Post recently surpassed The New York Times, this doesn’t surprise me. New services are on the up with entire sub genres being created. Examples used by Neil are Posterous and Storify (which is a particular favourite I might add). Older services are evolving. His point? – Blogging is indeed growing up, and offers value way beyond the obvious.
Neil uses an example of an article he wrote some time ago regarding the benefits of employing bloggers. The benefits are not the story here the story comes a year later when he happened upon a post which was inspired by his blog. Without delving into the depths of causality the truth is as Neil very correctly finishes with ‘sometimes we do things with little knowledge of the benefits to others of what we’re doing. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them’
As a marketing recruiter I am always looking at new ways to engage, new ways to develop relationships and establish connections, new ways to reach my network and build upon it, however often the case in recruitment is the need for instant success, quick wins and quantified return. Because of this it can be difficult to legitimise time spent on things that we would struggle to quantify the benefits not only to others but ourselves. Again this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them and shouldn’t fight for their value.
To return to Neil’s article one final time – the great thing about bloggers is that they ‘understand the value of connection, naturally get the nuances of social media and network like crazy’ – remind me again what a recruiter should be doing?! Blogging isn’t new by any means but it’s new to this recruiter and its here to stay with this recruiter!
