Blog on what you don't know : It's how you learn

Seth Godin had a post this morning which summarizes one of the core reasons I blog. Stick to what you (don’t) know says Godin:

One of the dumbest forms of criticism is to shout down an expert in one field who speaks up about something else. The actor with a political point of view, or the physicist who talks about philosophy. The theory is that people should stick to what they know and quietly sit by in all other situations. Of course, at one point, we all knew nothing. The only way you ever know anything, in fact, is to speak up about it. Outline your argument, support it, listen, revise. The byproduct of speaking up about what you don’t know is that you soon know more. And maybe, just maybe, the experts learn something from you and your process.

I didn’t know a thing about blogging when I started blogging almost nine years ago. I knew blogging would be great for a lawyerslooking to establish trust with their audience and to enhance their word of mouth reputation.  Even though some folks introduced me to audiences in 2004 as a national authority on blogging for lawyers, all I knew was what I picked up from other bloggers. In order to learn about blogging and how blogging could be used for business development, I needed to blog. By blogging, I followed smart people and what they had to say. I blogged what those folks were saying and shared my thoughts on why what they were saying was relevant to lawyers and how they could use blogs and the net for networking. Sometimes people on the net responded that I was  a nut, other times people added their thoughts, and some times people even agreed with me. No matter, I was constantly learning. Better yet, for establishing trust I was being vulnerable and transparent in my learning. People like people who don’t know it all. Blog to learn. As Godin says, “No one knows more about the way you think than you do. Applying that approach, combining your experience, taking a risk–this is what we need from you.”