Blogging makes you smarter
Posted on November 16, 2007
That’s a strange idea I had a couple of days ago while getting home from the office. I actually started by thinking what’s the thing that my colleagues like best about the way I’m doing my job. I believe that I’ve somehow turned into the “idea guy” - a little monkey that sits in a corner and gets out of the box ideas about solving things (some would call this as being a consultant).
But where are all these ideas come from? Well, in a twisted and un-expected strange way, the ideas come from…blogging. Yes, blogging is an outgoing process in which you share your thoughts with the world. But then again, blogging is an incoming process in the same time. Somewhere in the process of playing smart and write a blog, bloggers need to accumulate knowledge about the things they are writing.
They are reading other blogs, they receive comments from readers and maybe they do guest blogging. And for that, they start to know things. And if you know things (like why the banners don’t work anymore, or what’s the market status or anything else) you are getting smarter. Because you can have an opinion on things.
Sure, your colleagues might know the market as good as you know it, but you have an advantage. Because you are blogging, you know how to communicate your knowledge better, in the same way you are connecting to your readers.
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Cristian, this is true to a certain extent and I don’t want to spend time on reflecting on the weaknesses of blogging because those who dwell on others weakness become weaker and continuous improvement is always a personal mirror.
“That’s a strange idea I had” is what I consider smart because here you are not simply reprocessing someone else’s thoughts, by thinking these things through to logical conclusions or creative result will make one smarter, because there is an investment here which is thinking itself.
IMHO the only difference between you and I here is that you are blogging vertically - i.e. the blog flows chronologically, and I am blogging horizontally - I have chosen to go across the long tail and briefly stop of at sites like yours to either share or immerse in a different perspective. That does not mean that I am averse to vertical blogging - my journey is simply a personal exploration.
For me there are two ways that blogging can make you smart. These two ways are
1. Blogging Diversity
2. Blogging Specialism
As a horizontal blogger I am hopefully going to make myself smarter as a renaissance man, and in this regard horizontal blogging is like traveling. The reason I call it “Diversity” is because generalism does not make one smarter - the difference here between diversity in a blogging context and the generalist in a blogging context is the difference between a traveler and a tourist. A traveller thinks and lives on his journey, a tourist clicks pictures, buys kitsch, visits conventional places and hands out plaudits.
A vertical blogger is going to get smarter because she or he is sharpening their saw, though blog as a brand does not appeal to me, it is a highly effective marketing tool but brand blogging does not make the blog owner smarter other than a few thoughts about marketing tricks. Where there is some kind of intelligent focus, that Socratic kind of mind which questions rather than imitates or where there is a genuine want or need to serve others as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book the Tipping Point - the specialism acquired from focus or tending a specific thinking garden is going to contribute to a smarter life.
Ultimately Brian Tracy in his book “Something for Nothing” points out an interesting observation (in his case about the American Dream) with a few observations that one can agree with or disagree with - but his book is principally about thoughtlessness.
The irony Cristian is that the moment we start thinking, we start linking and that very linking stops us thinking. So horizontal blogging is an idea of individual freedom, whereas I see vertical blogging as a convention of traditional social media. That is my observation but since I also believe in continuous learning, who is it to say that this an observation that cannot be transformed into a wisdom.
When I am in my rocking chair, I will either look back at a life that built on its strengths or I will look back at a life that followed convention. In my case my path becomes emergent and so my history is written backwards. Yes blogging makes one smarter when one can write their history backwards as well as forwards but first there must be some persona goal, some dream, some light of inspiration that gives shape to this energy that we refer to as blogging.
I apologize for taking so much space here Cristian, but I am not delivering a lecture here, I am merely thinking out aloud on the idea that you had and I don’t intend to be an overwhelming presence in any stop of my virtual journey, a journey which hopefully will change the way I think - and help me seek both that which increases intelligence about connecting with life and that which brings me to experience a greater personal freedom.
Thank you again for providing this particular space.
M.