Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah Blogging
Courtesy of Walkthetalk.com
A lot of my friends and colleagues are getting an earful these days about the wonders of blogging and all it can do to enrich your life. That’s because I am a salesman and when I get excited about something it is in my nature to go out tell everyone I come in contact with all about “the deal.” As most of you know by now, I am a Realtor here in Lynnwood and I spend a great deal of my time finding deals and then trying to find people who are looking for a deal and then working to get them all in the same room, at the same time to see if we can achieve a meeting of the minds so as to press forward and conduct commerce in one form or another. It’s a great life but as people get busier and busier it gets harder and harder to coordinate, never mind the negative press about the market. As it happens in this wondrous technological age, I can now create a virtual room, so to speak, in which all these facets of the business can come together at the convenience of the participants. Blogging, a term that is shorthand for Web Log, is a form of online diary or chronicle of things going on within a community created and maintained by the blog author and/or other contributors from within the community. Outsiders are allowed to see in via the internet and may join the community and remain a part of it so long as they conduct themselves in accordance with the standards of the community as defined by the community. Anyone abusing the privilege can be easily banished. So blogging is about forming and connecting small communities and each community has it’s own story and personality and eventually, commerce. When conducting commerce, the currency of the realm varies from community to community but they generally take one of three forms: Money, as in ads or goods, Time, as in maintenance and oversight, and Resources, as in content and participation. So it comes as no surprise that businesses have discovered that blogging is a cost effective method of communicating to and with the community of customers they have and, naturally, hope to expand. So while at first glance a blog may look like a random enterprise with very little purpose, look closer and you may find a commonality and dare I say it, a relevance, to the world you inhabit on a daily basis. The internet exposed each of us to millions and billions of people with a few clicks of a mouse, personal information, Spam, ID theft and the convenience of internet commerce all followed. But as was predicted, after spending time in a vast expanse with so much information and background noise going on, sometimes you just want to go back to a quiet community of people with common interests and where you know what to expect and who you’re interacting with. It all becomes manageable again. At the ROCS Alliance we are working on creating and supporting these smaller communities by spreading the word about blogging and helping people figure out ways to make it work for them. Whatever their interests may be. I am Jim Warner, Local Realtor, and you are invited to help write this story.
