Today I enjoyed a thought provoking conversation concerning the overwhelming amount of information that one is required to engage with in our world today. I don’t think I need to make a case for what certainly is a reality experienced by most. Not being connected today is as rare as an anartic heatwave. But there is a distiction between information and connection; between information and conversation.
We in TomorrowTday.biz have championed blogging. Rightly so. The potential value of blogging is awesome but there are also some dangers, dangers that perhaps are not yet self-evident as the ‘blog at all costs’ sweeps into vogue. Let me mull over a few dangers that are becoming more obvious to me.
Information out of context is problematic, even dangerous. Often (but not always) super-highways of information (like blogs) don’t or can’t provide context.
Blogs that don’t connect become more noise in an already noisy system. And here of course you may well afford an ironic smile that would not be out of place as you read this blog! In reviewing the many blogs in ‘our system’ at least, not many have generated conversation – most have supplied information. Of course paradoxically, the ‘conversational’ value of a blog can only be determined with hindsight.
Linked to this point is that it is interesting to note that some blog but seldom engage / comment (on other blogs) – and I could well be one such person! Point is, could blogging without engagement be a form of Information age diarrhea rather than a Connection age relating? Responding to what amounts to ‘mini-articles’ or expert ‘editorial’ comment is different from responding to an invitation to converse between peers. Or is it?
The pace of it all can mean that certain things that need time to stew aren’t afforded the time to do so. As a friend said, ” it is like only ever drinking grape juice instead of wine” (which needs time to ferment).
I also wonder what will be the reaction to the information overload. Obviously things cannot ‘go back to the way they were’ nor should they. But, that doesn’t mean that what we currently have is better. The challenge is how to ensure that what we have takes us to where we want to be. Could it be that the sages, the ‘wise ones’ today will be those who are able to hold to enduring values (whatever those are) and point us to or take us to that place which is threatened by ‘our advances’.
I suspect that this goes beyond a generational debate as it does a technological one. Something deeper is going on here and I am not altogether certain of what that is. All I know that in my experience much of what has come to me through blogging has not enriched, in fact it has added to the clutter. I also know that somehow to ignore the opportunity this technology provides is crazy. Perhaps it is just that we haven’t yet learnt how best to use it and so aren’t fully aware of the full potentail for both the good and the bad.
So perhaps the issue here is not blogging. After all here I am blogging! The issue (and my concern) is the purpose and use of this excellent technology that allows for conversations in a networked world. Perhaps this is all much ado about nothing but I do wonder who else ‘out there’ feels as I do. One commitment I have when blogging is to do so as ‘open ended’ as is possible. To leave space for conversation rather than adding information.
Anyone up for a conversation?
Keith the great story teller and challenging leader will hopefully get some good responses again on this issue. For me the blog has been a learning tool and I think we need to ask these questions so that we continue to improve and not fall into an information jungle. The few times that I have blogged have been mainly because I have a thought that I would like to share and get a response from others.Conversations help us to grow and challenge our perceptions. Our world is made up of many different personalities, gender issues, generational differences and many other dimensions that shape our world. So yes Keith I do enjoy the blogs that bring about conversation. I have to say that some do not get my attention at all. I enjoy some of the factual information. It is a channel we can use to share information as long as it does not become only that. The Quick and the dead stories have been great but again our main aim should not be to bash or highlight an issue unless we feel it will bring about change, debate and awareness. The personal stories also have their space. Especially those relating to the group as I think we could use this more to bond the group. The challenge is how many of the group want to use this channel to communicate. Like information vs connection for the people side this should be ONE of the tools we use but NEVER replace the face to face connection of the team and individuals. This has to always remain top of mind for each memeber of the team. WHAT HAVE I DONE TODAY TO CONNECT WITH A MEMBER OF THE TEAM? So what did I do? I went and had freshly made crumpets with Lezelle and her girls. Thanks we had a great hour and I know that these hours are critical to success in a PEOPLE FOCUSSED WORLD.
Keith,
Thanks for the excellent reflections on blogging (and other stuff). I do think that we need to work towards some “policies” for blogging. Your thoughts lead me in certain directions in this regard.
For example, good blogs must provide context. That’s why linking to sources, providing background information, coming back to past blogs to fill out details, and encouraging comment, are all part of creating a valuable blog (as opposed to another space to dump info).
Your comments about comments are important. Commenting on our blog is as important as writing blog entries. It is a new way of engaging. Commenting (just as blogging) is an invitation to engage, just as it is a form of engagement itself. It would be great to hear that some of what has been blogged has started face to face connections as well.
I agree fully with you that we have not yet learnt to blog properly. We have not yet learnt to engage properly through this medium. But let me respond by using a “real world” example. Take a group of people and put them together in a room. Now ask them to engage/connect. There will be some time when they talk to/past each other. There will be some noisy interactions. And some moments of silence too. Some people will speak much, some not at all. Some will listen, some won’t. The key to getting that group to engage lies with time, intentionality and good facilitation. I think the same is true of the use of blogging – and, Keith, I specifically invite you to provide some of the facilitation in this regard. In the “real world” your skills at getting a group to engage, to call out the silent ones and guide the loud ones, is legendary. Now, lets see you stretch those skills to this virtual space.
Blogs like the one I’m responding to are a great start.
Thanks
Yes, I like to blog and would love to converse more than currently does occur. I am struggling with how, why this is and what I (at least in my own way) can make a change. I had posted previously on a different way to count readership/audience. http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2005/03/public-listening-public-reading.html. This generated some conversation but not enough to gain traction so I have put it aside for now.
Your posting connects to a quote I found this morning from Kathy Sierra
“I don’t want to read too much into this, but what the hell–I will anyway. I think it means that after years of being enamored solely with the technology itself, and the various methodologies and approaches to crafting it, the geek world is starting to look at the larger sphere around the use of the technology. In other words, not just the content but the context in which technology is created and used. That means caring about the quality of our lives, as developers, as well as the quality of our user’s lives and the role we play in that.
And I don’t want to get too excited about what that means, but what the hell–I will anyway. I think something important is happening, and it can only be good. Maybe we’ve finally stopped saying our secret stock option prayers at night (“Please oh please God bring back the bubble and this time I won’t piss it away I promise…”) and decided to focus on what we have, and what we can do to make things better. The whole idea of Getting Things Done is about being able to spend more time in flow, the very thing we believe leads to passionate users.”
Kathy’s posting is at: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/open_source_pas.html
So what does this mean? I think we must slow down. Instead of attempting to cruise through the RSS feeds of 200 or so blogs, we should focus on a select few, and have a conversation on topics within those blogs, amongst those folks.
Will the conversation stale over time? One hopes not. If the company is diverse enough there should be enough fodder for a goodly number of conversations. If it does stale, then one can always move along (and then come back).
If ones focus is generating readership, then that would preclude generating real conversations.
If ones focus is on conversations, then readership will be fully engaged and that is what matters to a good conversation.
Thoughts?
What a coincidence to read this blog Keith on the day that I had committed myself to enter my first blog! Enough to send me scurrying back to my corner!! Despite being such a poor contributor, I do see the blog as an amazing channel for open communication and with a virtual business such as ours, it provides a good alternative to coffee station/lunch table conversation which I often miss and which is so vital in learning about those you work with. I also see the massive power it has in terms of the exchange of ideas and learnings for the benefit of our own professional growth as well as creating awareness and value for clients interested enough to follow our bloggings. And yet it’s the noise you speak of that has held me back – who wants to hear what I have to say? Surely my 5c worth isn’t going to set fireworks off in anyone’s day? I am one of those possibly unfortunate souls who doesn’t believe in saying it unless it’s worth saying. I don’t think any blog site can escape being noisy and we all need to find our own ways of cutting through the noise – what is a pearl of wisdom to one is easily a no-brainer to the next person. For me, the unrelenting pressure has come to bear and despite my misgivings about the value of my contributions, here I am! And you’ve all already fallen asleep! So what – I’M BLOGGING!!!! This morning was my admin (yes Materix!) catch-up morning. No meetings until 2:00pm so I’m settled into my study with the heater on, Missy Higgins playing through my laptop, catching an occasional glimpse of our resident woodpecker ferretting in the grass outside my door. And I’ve blogged. I love this job.
Keith, I think your concerns are valid, especially to those of your who work in the virtual environment. To someone like myself who works in a Boomer dominated large corporate, where I get more “face” time than I would like, blogs are my link to sanity!
To add to Graeme’s example of a “real world” conversation, remember that conversations are not isolated. What is said in conversation with one group will be mentioned in conversation with others, if it is relevant or interesting enough.
So while I might have (until now) been one of the non-contributing listeners to your conversations, I’ve taken content from your blogs and emailed them to colleagues, which has resulted in other conversations taking place but not reflected here.
I love the opportunity of being part of conversations at my leisure too. If work demands force me to log out of this particular conversation now (or someone appears in front of my desk!), at least I know I can come back to it later in the day.
Keith, you used the word “clutter” to describe much of what blogging has added to your connecting world. My experience has been that as well, although only as I began to blog. As I have engaged more with blogs (such as TmTd.biz and setting up my own) I have learnt that blogging is not THE form of communication, nor is it the only one. My initial response to blogging was, “Sheesh I barely have time in a day to digest all of this!” But I have learnt to make time.
Of all my blogging activity, roughly 10% of it is repsonding to entries and posting comments. The rest of the time is taken up by absorbing the content in the blog. Blogging has had a very real impact on my world. I’v never been one for journalling, but creating my own blog has allowed me the room to explore it – online. When you pulbish an entry, the only tangible way you have of knowing if anyone is meaningfully engaging with your content is if they post a comment. The rest of the time you do not know who has read it, what effect it has had? This is part of the fun I think. But the consequence is what we tend to do in one-way comms, use it as a blank sheet on which we project responses we might hope to get get or responses that highlight the difficulties we have in connecting with people.
Just think for a minute, how do you respond when someone does not reply to an email of yours?
Other than Jean’s Tempest Car hire story this is the only other blog that I recall eliciting as much response. As one of the people involved in the conversation Keith refers to I feel like “Hmmm, so we aren’t the only ones…”
Every conversation I have had regarding blogging is overwhelmingly positive [even those where we talk about some of the frustrations]. I think most of the frustration in the system relates to teh effective use of blogging. SO for what it is worth here are a few observations from my own blogging experience.
1) I have ?ic as my home page so whenever I open my browser the blog pops up. I am astounded at how quickly the posting at the top of the page changes. This is important because I hardly ever scroll down the blog. If it isn’t there I don’t generally look for it. Eg. Steve’s posting that is currently at the top of the list refers to another posting….I never read it [probably because it was knocked of the top by another posting shortly after going on]. We need to find some way to slow down the rate of info dump. If you put 10 posting on tonight you have probably wasted 90% of your time, where I am concerned, because I will only be looking at teh top one.
2) The conversation pit component of the blog is one of its greatest contributions to our virtual environment…it is also the bit that I find most missing [except the odd contribution]. My observation is that the vast majority of postings are op-eds or essays written to impress with info / content but not really to stimulte conversation. Keith has made this point already so I won’t labour it.
3) Our blog feels clogged. A question for the ether: “Is there a role for a blog editor or editorial team?”
Final point. I DIG OUR BLOG! We are engaging with something valuable and learning as we go along. We will get there and the journey is the funnest part.
I agree that our blog feels clogged. I’ve been thinking on this for a while and maybe it’s an idea to split up our blog into sub-blogs. Yes, I know we have categories, which are supposed to help, but I don’t really find them that helpful in the end.
Maybe we can even look into splitting the major bloggers into their personal business bloggers. So Graeme and Barrie get their own blogs (with trendy looks, especially for Barrie – he needs all the help he can get!) simply because they post so much; then we can look at who/what else needs their/it’s own blog…and go from there.
The question will still be, “How do I assimilate all of this information?” The BEST thing is to get yourself a blog reader (and they’re free – download off the net – http://www.feedreader.com/). So instead of trundling off to the website to read the blogs, they get loaded into your blog reader. I have both the RSS Feed and comments feed (see the bottom of this page) loaded into my blog reader – and whenever the blog is updated, so is my blog reader. This really helps me in terms of processing information, plus I can also add in the news feeds of other business blogs (like the Dilbert feed at http://dwlt.net/tapestry/dilbert.rdf ) which means I can stay updated without having to visit those sites.
I’ve just found a much cooler blog reader called BlogBridge. Plus, it runs on Mac, Windows and Linux. Did I mention it’s free? http://www.blogbridge.com/download-select.php
Perhaps we need to stop disecting, contemplating, philosophying and thinking and do a little more of the doing stuff. For goodness sake get over questioning blogs and blog a bit. The question/query about Conversations v Information is now over! This blog entry has just proved it. Conclusively.
Blogs are about the freedom and space to speak into the universe, and then to sit back and marvel at the connections that do and don’t happen. Information will flow where it wants, connect where it wants and we will discover it’s context. There’s absolutely nothing new about that! The ‘conversation v information’ debate is more about the need to control a create a structured process than it is about blogging.
When in human history have we ever had a mechanism like this. Where anyone can say anthing to everyone?
Conversations don’t have to look like they’ve always looked to be called conversations.
No guilt, no limits, no control (or editing). What a rush!
Perhaps we need to stop disecting, contemplating, philosophying and thinking and do a little more of the doing stuff. For goodness sake get over questioning blogs and blog a bit. The question/query about Conversations v Information is now over! This blog entry has just proved it. Conclusively.
Blogs are about the freedom and space to speak into the universe, and then to sit back and marvel at the connections that do and don’t happen. Information will flow where it wants, connect where it wants and we will discover it’s context. There’s absolutely nothing new about that! The ‘conversation v information’ debate is more about the need to control a create a structured process than it is about blogging.
When in human history have we ever had a mechanism like this. Where anyone can say anthing to everyone?
Conversations don’t have to look like they’ve always looked to be called conversations.
No guilt, no limits, no control (or editing). What a rush!
Query on the ‘pace of it all’. (Mentioned above regularily) Once a blog entry is published, I have not seen it change? I’ve seen more added, but entry by entry, there is no pace. There is pace in comment (which indicates conversation) but entry for entry, there is no change (except for the occasional pic)
Newspapers change daily. There are hundreds of articles. We scan and read what interests us and catches our eye. Every now and then we engage in conversation, with the editor, the writer or a friend or colleague.
Is the implication of the above conversation that newspapers only print one story a day/week or until the conversation is complete?
Query on the ‘pace of it all’. (Mentioned above regularily) Once a blog entry is published, I have not seen it change? I’ve seen more added, but entry by entry, there is no pace. There is pace in comment (which indicates conversation) but entry for entry, there is no change (except for the occasional pic)
Newspapers change daily. There are hundreds of articles. We scan and read what interests us and catches our eye. Every now and then we engage in conversation, with the editor, the writer or a friend or colleague.
Is the implication of the above conversation that newspapers only print one story a day/week or until the conversation is complete?