Saturday, February 16, 2008

A Blog, A Book and A Paper

What is the reason for someone to create and maintain a Weblog?

Blog is a tool to put ideas, reactions and observations into public. A personal diary in public.

In the process, one creates content, expresses likes and dislikes (and gives opportunities to Web2.0 apps to sell you a relevant product!), have the contentment of speaking it out (and, in some cases, being 'heard' also), and it creates a possibility for an interaction for you where someone might respond to your views.

As to the frequency of blogging, I do not suppose there could be any rules as such. I think if you get one good idea per week to talk about in your blog, and you keep that practice for an year, effectively you would end up having about 50 good ideas. I would say, that makes a really productive year: 50 good ideas! Not bad...



This also goes on speaking about the new Social dynamics that the technology has infused among us.

On the downside, the chief one, as I see it, is that there is a real threat to a prospective book that one may write... All the ideas that one found worth talking about, are already in one's blog in the public... What would one write a book about?

[Well, being conscious about this, I am keeping the topic and ideas about my book private :-) At the same time, I do wish to marshal certain skills for a more effective book by writing a blog.]

Having said that, if a blog manages to bring reputed and like-minded folks together and becomes interactive where people could review and audit ideas, concepts, observations of the peers', it could surely lead towards a paper. And a paper that is peer-reviewed always carries higher credibility and authority compared to a book which practically anybody could write and publish.

So, essentially what I am saying is, if you are reading this, and if you do maintain a blog as well, go ahead, drop in a comment and I would have a look at your 'stuff' also...

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