This post has been lurking in my drafts folder for a while, but watching a video on openforum provided me with the stimulus to post it.

Why Blog?

The reasons for a personal and for a business blog are not all the dissimilar. A long ago I stated my reasons for blogging, and those haven’t really changed:

• Blogging enables me to clarify my thoughts, examining them and reflecting on them.
• Blogging enables me to think about my thinking – meta-cognition.
• Blogging forces me to gather information to support or dismiss my opinions.
• Blogging is a place to plan and reflect – it is much more than what ends up in the post.

Blogging really is just a form of writing, and by writing you will find your voice. And you get used to your voice – your unique way of communicating. Blogging creates a level of self-awareness that is otherwise hard to obtain, and it is a great form of self-actualization.

Don’t take my word for it. This the list of reasons that marketing guru Seth Godin gives for blogging:

• Blogging is free.
• It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it.
• … and the meta cognition of thinking about what you are going to say.
• If you are good at it, some people will read it.
• If you are not good at it, stick with it you will get good at it.
• It forces you to become part of the conversation…
• …and that posture change changes an enormous amount.

Yes you say, but Seth is one of those marketing guys. He would say that wouldn’t he. How about Tom Peters then? Tom is well know as one of the leading experts in business management, he says:

“No single thing in the last 15 years, professionally, has been more important to my life than blogging. It has changed my life. It has changed my perspective. It has changed my intellectual outlook. It has change my emotional outlook. Parathesises: and it is the best damn marketing tool, by an order of magnitude, I’ve ever had.” Tom Peters

You can see Seth Godin and Tom Peters on that video here. If you haven’t started a blog already, start by commenting on the blogs that you read. Did you know that you are here with thousands of other visitors? You have a unique perspective, and know things that myself and others may never know, unless you tell us.

You can take the step that moves you from the audience and onto the stage just by leaving a comment. Step into the blogosphere, it really is the only way to find out what it is all about.