A blog ties a lawyer’s online meanderings together
Veteran technology writer and founder of GigaOM, Om Malik (@om), provides excellent context for the blog in the midst of social media in his piece, “In 12 years of blogging, the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Over the past 12 years, blogging has gone from being a niche curiosity to becoming a catch-all phrase for everything from rants to press release rewrites. However, what has not changed is its ethos and its importance in an increasingly content rich world.
12 years ago for Malik, 10 years ago for me, blogs were an oddity. We took to the net to share what we read, post pictures, list other blogs (blogrolls), share briefly annotated links, and to respond to other bloggers who engaged us through their blogs.
One thing we all did in each post though was to share our point of view.
…mixing news with musings, with pictures, links, and later videos. It started and ended with that point of view, one that was open to adaption and adjustment, but always informed.
We’ve witnessed an explosion of social media. The sharing, posting, and linking remain the same. They’re just happening in other media beyond blogs. Media that had their roots in the blog.
Malik does a great job in laying this out in his graphic.
Where does the blog fit in all of this?
I think the blog is the one that ties it all together — a central location where you fit together all the Lego pieces. In many ways it is no different than what blogs used to be in the beginning. Instead of them being a starting point of the journey, they are now the final stop, a digital home in our social media meanderings. Marc Canter came up with a concept called “digital life aggregators.” And he was right — blogs are just that, digital life aggregators.
What does this all mean for you as a lawyer?
You need a place that ties it all together for you. You need a place on the net that ties your insight and commentary together. Where is your body of work – ideas, engagement with other thought leaders, learning – pulled together other than on your blog?
Blogging is something that I and other lawyers enjoy. We pour our heart and emotion into our blogs. It’s a learning experience for us. It’s our giving to others a real opportunity to get to know us and trust us as professionals.
As much as I and other bloggers embrace short form social media, our blog ties it all together.