Day 512: People, Not Audience

Blogging is not about talking at disembodied ether, but instead a great means to meet people and generate, discuss, opine and oppose with them. If it weren’t for this space, I would not have met a number of people whom I refer to as colleagues, co-conspirators, sparring buddies and friends. Again, it comes back to that whole Philosophy Of Blogging.

Each topic this blog has touched upon recently – blogger credentialing, blogging as a substitute for real protest, crime and public housing in New Orleans, racism/nativism – shares an essence: people. Actual humans. As much information as possible from and to as many people as possible. This is also my unofficial motto for Project Gutenberg: Maximum books to maximum people. We often forget that the internet is simply a tool for us to use, not the other way around.

Stowe Boyd groks this belief and relates it to corporate blogging in Enough Already: Getting Social Media All Wrong:

Blogging is not just another channel for corporate marketing types to push their messages to markets, eyballs, or audiences. Social media is based on the dynamic of a many-to-many dialogue between people. Yes, people: that’s the word that should have been used. Not audience.

… For example, seeing the bloggers acknowledge on one hand that CEOs don’t actually provide those quotes that are stuck into press releases while on the other hand promoting transparency and openness in corporate communications was more than painful. We should simply state, unequivocally, that such things are not social media: they are old style, push marketing crap. They are exactly the things that lead us to question the motives, influence, and truthfulness of stupid, old line companies who just don’t get it.

My favorite moments with VatulBlog come from reading active discussion in its comments section. People who know each other in different contexts or who would never have met can now virtually meet and share, debate, educate and learn. Let’s encourage these people in all of our blogs as we careen into the future of social media.