The Relevance of Blogging

Before I started the Creative Communications program, I had never read a blog in my life. I thought a blog was really just another word for online journal. But now that I’ve had a few months of writing and reading them, I’ve changed my view on what they are and what they can accomplish. Here are just a few of the examples I believe show the relevance of blogging.

First, when you write your ideas and post them for everyone else to read, you’re exposing not only those ideas but also your writing to comments from others. This really helps you evaluate your thinking and writing processes. It helps you to see your views more thoroughly by examining the issue from different angles. Also, you can watch as your style of writing evolves, and which style works best to communicate with the public.

Second, you can really get to know people by their posts. By reading my classmates’ blogs, I’ve been able to see a lot more of who they are. How other people think is an amazing thing and you can see the thinking processes of other people in your class, which is not only enlightening, but also helps you to adapt new ways of thinking for yourself. The diverse writing styles also help to increase your own writing skill set.

Third, if you want to know what issues are important to others, just read their blogs. I think this is very important for anyone in the communications field. We need to keep up to date with how people are getting their information, and what issues they want to find their information on. Blogs are a great way to see trends in how this is changing.

Fourth, blogs can get things done. Just think of the Progressive Winnipeg blog; he writes about issues around Winnipeg that get him and the public angry. His writing and how he relates the issues to the public have even gotten the city to change some things in order to make conditions better for us. Personally, I never thought a blog could have this much power, but as you can see, it can.

I am still quite new to the world of blogging. I don’t have a specific focus yet, or see how my blog relates to other people. But I can say that it is developing into something that will. My biggest take-away from blogging thus far is how to communicate with others online. Not only can you use facebook, and various other social sites, to network with people you meet, but you can also use a venue like blogging to communicate to the world at large. To know that so many people have access to your ideas and writing is a scary, but powerful thing.

Whether you want to improve your writing, learn to see issues through more angles, keep up with changing communication trends, or actually right the wrongs you see around you, blogging can help achieve it. The difficult thing is spending the time required on learning how to do it effectively.