Unexpected aspects of blogging

I thought about blogging for quite a while.

But I’m not a writer.

The first big barrier to get over was the voice of the evil English teacher in college. Mind you I do not remember the person’s name, or even if it was a man or woman. What I do remember is sitting in class during the second week after turning in our first assignment. The professor handed me the paper with a big red C- on it and said something in a loud voice in front of the whole class about my having absolutely no talent for writing and was lucky to have any credit for the assignment at all. I walked out, dropped the class, and avoided writing for almost 20 years until I went to graduate school. Avoiding writing wasn’t even necessarily conscious, it was like touching a hot stove and just learning not to do that again.

I so hope I have not inadvertently made one of those comments to people in my classes. Teaching art and helping people get in touch with their creative selves, I have heard so many of these stories. So many teachers and parents, probably trying to ‘help’ by telling the young ones trees aren’t purple. So many people just saying, forget it, I won’t even try.

So, writing isn’t my strongest skill. I’ve discovered blogging is only partially about writing. Yes, I wish I was more technically correct, more witty, more concise, more entertaining while insightful. The best known bloggers are all of that and more. But this isn’t a professional blog about blogging, this is a blog to offer something to my customers and colleagues. If I’m lucky, it will be a springboard for conversations and dialogue.

Thinking and Reflection

Writing helps you think. I should know this from doing many learning journals over the years, and asking others to do the same. Once you start reading other blogs, you have a constant infusion of ideas to think about. I think about my customers and what kinds of question they are asking me. What do I have running around my head that might be valuable to someone.

Valuable to someone was a key insight that got me over the hump to just jump in and try a blog. Blogging isn’t necessarily about fully formed thoughts that will change the world. It’s more like a collection of little tidbits that you offer to the flock. Someone might find just the crumb they need to make sense of something else. As I started to read other blogs, I discovered that happened all the time. A phrase on one blog would link to a sentence on another. In the context of the workshop I went to, and the discussion I had with a colleague.

Others have similar insights

I’ve been seeing other bloggers make similar observations. In her post after blogging for 100 days, Janet Clarey had this to say:

There is a palpable difference between reading/lurking and writing that I had not fully anticipated. The difference is in the learning experience. If I were to return to a corporate training job I would blog and get others blogging. Culture be damned!

I know I read a whole lot about the relationship of blogging and learning on The Bamboo Project. I found so many interesting things here by Michele Martin, that I can’t even link you to a specific post. I spent quite a bit of time being inspired by following links on her blog. Learning that I need to come up with a system for keeping tack of all the tidbits I find.