Tag Archives: To Blog

All, To Blog

Respect Literacy: Blogs are the New Book

Like books, personal blogs seem to have an innate ability built-in to the medium to bring out the best in people.

Do not confuse blogs with social media.

I have been keeping this list of my friends’ websites for several years now. Many are small business sites (pillars of society), none are vanity-driven, and all of the information is thoughtful, meaningful work by people who care. All of it is good. It represents the cream of 100+ years of electronic communication. That’s a strong statement and it’s true.

If you became literate and started reading books 500 years ago after the Gutenberg Press, you got ahead. If you understand the power the internet brings to people by enabling blogs, you get ahead.

All, To Blog

Breaking News! Barrier to Information Dissemination Drops to Zero

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Why am I writing this? More importantly, why are you reading? More importantly, how is it that I can publish something that the entire world can read instantly and for free? This is possible because the internet went public 25 years ago on 6 August 1991. Yes, 25 years ago, but it is still a huge deal–huge–and it may be just now ramping up. Is it breaking news? Yes! Every day of our lives.

I took European history as an AP class in high school, and I could hardly have found it more boring. I specifically remember being taught what a huge deal the “Gutenberg Press” was. I happened to believe that the Gutenberg Press was the single most boring invention or event I’d ever heard of. No longer! By a combination of The Great Courses lectures and learning my own family history, I am a history convert and an enthusiastic believer that the Gutenberg Press matters to us because of its analogous relationship to the internet.

History repeats itself, but you have to know which history to look at. We should look at the Gutenberg Press as the most pertinent historical event for us today because the internet is the modern-day acceleration of what the Gutenberg Press started 550 years before it.

The Gutenberg Press was a big deal because it enabled the rapid dissemination of information. It greatly lowered the barrier to producing copies of ideas. Instead of requiring a team of monks to copy books by hand one word at a time, you could stamp out pages by the hundreds. Before the press, copying was extremely slow, after the press, several orders of magnitude faster, but you still needed a printing press and employees, or later an antenna and a license to broadcast by radio or television, or a copy machine and some kind of network to disseminate the paper. From the press and employees to an antenna and broadcast license, these were all things that only organizations and businesses had, so there was still a barrier. However, beginning in August of 1991, that requirement dropped to zero. Literally anybody with internet access–free at your public library–can publish an idea and give instant access to most of the world within seconds and at a ridiculously low cost of less than $70 per year for a website. Twitter, Facebook, and all social media that matters is free. TV networks actually report what social media says, not the other way around.

What does it mean? It means that both the printing press and the internet are a big deal, and a big deal for the same reason. Therefore, some of their effects on society will be analogous. If you want to read history that is pertinent to today, a good target year is somewhere between 1440 and 1648–plus or minus of course.

The internet went public 25 years ago, and 1465 was 25 years after the printing press was invented, so you might say 1465 is the best year to look at, but things happen faster today. I would argue that we’re past 1465. Did the average peasant even know about the press in 1465? Probably not. Maybe they had seen a printed Bible at church by that time or heard some rumors. By contrast, an estimated 40% of the world’s population is already using the internet.

1648 was 208 years after the invention of the press, and by that time, the protestant movement was established, and The Thirty Years’ War had concluded, the largest conflict that can be directly connected to the invention of the printing press. The Thirty Years’ War involved all the major European powers, resulted in the fracture of the Catholic Church, established an entire new category of religion, and an estimated 8 million people died.

Back to what made this interesting to me in the very first place. Let’s have a quick conversation with my great x 9 grandfather, Michael Rouffin, in Bexbach, Germany in 1655 when he was 20 years old (in German of course, and I made some of this up).

“So Nine-Great Grandpa, that’s a nice wooden-covered Bible you have displayed on the table there.”

“Yes. I’m the first in my family to own one. It was given to me by the church as a gift when I came here to Bexbach.”

“Why did you move to Bexbach? Was there a problem in Rouffin where you’re from?”

“No. The problem was here in Bexbach. Most of the men in this town were killed in the war. Bexbach and the surrounding towns were decimated. I was summoned here by the landlord to replace them and farm the land and repopulate the town.”

“What do you think of the war and these new religions that have established themselves?”

“I don’t know. It sure is a crazy world these days though.”

Boy, was he right! Sound familiar? It was a time of extreme knowledge increase, and extreme upheaval.

That’s all I have. I have to read more history…

All, To Blog

To Blog or Not to Blog?

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That is the question.

In this my third year of “blogging,” I have decided that it’s time to discuss “blogging” itself. I have had a website since summer 2013 when my friend Biff showed me how easy it is to do. Most of you have probably not ever blogged and view bloggers as self-absorbed blabber-mouths with an inflated sense of their own importance. Well, actually, maybe you don’t–but that’s how I felt, and so I assumed others felt that way, and that is where I started two and a half years ago…

When I wrote my first post, I can remember clicking the little “Publish” button and waiting for this imaginary something to happen because I had simultaneously spoken to the entire world all at once. I felt like the collective criticism of the world was going to descend upon me and laugh me off the face of the earth. I called my brother and some friends to look at my post just to get some feedback because the anticipation was killing me. Instead of something cataclysmic, nothing happened. I found not only had I not spoken to the entire world all at once, but hardly anyone noticed. This is bad for someone trying to get hits on his website, but for me, I was relieved, and as time went by, I found that I felt more and more free to write what I want and click that “Publish” button. I have come to the point where I enjoy having my website and it has proven very useful. To take it one step further, I will go so far as to say that if you use the internet, you too should blog!–or at least dabble in blogging, or at least have a simple site. The following is why.

  1. A website gives you elbow room on the internet. Let’s face it, these days we all spend some time on the internet. Even those stubborn technophobic Facebook hold-outs who just got a smart phone use the internet. So wouldn’t it be nice to have some of your own space here? “It’s just virtual space!” you say. Yes. Correct. It’s just a virtual internet too, but you’re on it. It must have some value. Own, don’t be a lifetime renter. Having your own personal space, that elbow room, allows you to direct your information seeking efforts so you don’t get lost in the black hole that leads to the end of the internets. If nothing else, you can set up a page with a list of your favorite links as a starting point when getting your news from the internet. Click the link. I do just that with my website.
  2. Having a website gives you a behind-the-scenes perspective on the internet. Ever watch the “behind-the-scenes” of the making of a movie? Seeing it changes how you perceive the movie and you understand it better. Producing video gives you some perspective on what is possible in movies and video production. The same applies to internet information. Once you produce information on the internet you realize how easy it is and impresses upon you the importance of screening the information. Anybody can do it! There is a whole bunch of junk information out there – especially on the internet – and you are much better equipped at recognizing it if you supply some of the junk yourself! I do. Click the link and buy something, dang it!
  3. Blogging gives you a voice. Have you ever played a game where you aren’t allowed to speak for an extended period of time? It’s frustrating, right? Have you ever been frustrated by the stupid things people say in public forums? “I heard so-and-so said such-and-such on Twitter. What an idiot!” Twitter user or not, you’ve seen tweets. You can’t stop them. Twitter is free. You can’t escape them. Tweets are part of the news these days. Don’t fall into the trap of helpless frustration! Believe me, no matter how many followers one has, they are frustrated too. Dear Twitter Idiot, a million people may have read your tweet, but it still only took those million people 10 seconds to read your 140 characters, and they moved on to the next tweet with little more than a nagging feeling of neglect that you didn’t even bother to use punctuation when speaking to millions of people. Dear Frustrated Mute Listener, find your voice! Blabber on! Look no further for an example. This is me blabbering right here! Look! An excessive exclamation point! Where? Right there! You can too. If you are my friend, I will even go out of my way to read and promote your unlimited characters, but you have to take that first step.
  4. You can use your blog to discuss with your friends more efficiently. Whenever I research a subject, I write my conclusion in a post instead of just an e-mail. That way when the subject comes up again, I send the link to my conclusion! You systemize your discussions! Yes, I really do this and it is fun.
  5. A website is an efficient way to communicate and organize. I used my site for an event over Thanksgiving, and it worked great. Facebook works too, and so does group e-mail, but a website has an advantage over each. With a site, you can adjust it after sending the link, which you can’t do with a group e-mail. Some people do not have Facebook, and you can reach those people as well. You definitely want to be able to reach the Facebook hold-outs, they are the coolest people out there. Just ask them!
  6. Those from the pre-internet days will say we don’t know anything, we just know how to search fast. People say we have off-loaded our brains to the internet. We have transferred memory itself to computers. I agree. It is truly amazing how much information one can take in. Even more amazing, with a blog, you can hyper-organize the information. With the internet, our brains can become an index of searches. With a blog, you don’t even need to do that. You can become an index to the table of contents of your own cross reference to all information known to man – the internet. Most importantly, with a blog you can quickly reference only the specific information you have deemed quality.
  7. The internet can be compared to real estate. Many people will say that blogs are out of date and you will not get any traffic. You should use established places like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, et cetera. It is true that you will get more traffic in these established places. They are like a store front in a mall. There is naturally traffic passing by. With a blog you must generate your own traffic organically. However! Space on the internet is like real estate. With a blog you own the space and you own the traffic. You control how your content is displayed and in the event that you do generate traffic, you own the advertising rights. If you are already producing content in any other place you should blog it first then copy paste it to the other established formats. Own your content!
  8. Last and certainly not least, blogging is a journal. Maybe you want to sit down for a few minutes each day / week / month and reflect. Journaling is a timeless activity. I argue that blogging is an improvement on journaling. Journaling is for hermits. In a journal, you may write some of your deepest secrets feeling the security that nobody will ever read it. How do we know that people write secrets in their journal? Because they wrote them down and somebody found their journal and read them, duh! With blogging, hopefully you’re smart enough not to publish your deepest secrets (I don’t recommend drinking and blogging, bad idea). Blogging is journaling with 3.26 billion of your closest friends keeping you honest. There is an imaginary force of motivation knowing that someone might be reading that keeps you to your routine of a few minutes of writing. So thanks for keeping me honest. The best is when somebody in real life tells you he has read your blog and makes some comment on it. It’s kind of a rush. It’s like a tiny piece of that tidal wave of criticism that you felt on day one–but not criticism at all–and you become a little less self-conscious, and a little more bold each time.

To blog! That is the answer.