After graduate students get blogged down, the instructor starts to sort out the opportunity from the hype in web-based social technology.
There's a noteworthy piece about blogging in the Chronicle Education (available to the public) by Kara Dawson, professor of educational technology at the University of Florida (Blog Overload, January 30). An enthusiastic reader of blogs, she discovered that not everyone is cut out for writing one after making it a requirement for her graduate students.
Her relevant observations for charity blogs:
- Blogs are most effective for relaying cutting-edge information (like the umpteen blogs covering the latest tech gadgets), engaging personal narratives (cancer survival), or write to a specific audience (law school professors).
- Successful blogging requires a deep commitment to the blog process, usually based on a combination of passion for the subject matter and the desire for ego stroking.
- It helps if you are a writer to begin with.
- A blog may not be the best solution for getting information out, especially if the goal is interaction among numerous individuals. Don't forget other, older technologies like discussion forums.
There's an excellent example of the last point in the contrast between the blog of nonprofit technology advocate Deborah Elizabeth Finn, which is only sporadically updated, and the Information Systems Forum that she moderates, which still sees over a hundred postings a month.
For charities considering whether to blog, I would say don't leap unless you're ready for a major commitment, with a deep supply either of information or of emotionally engaging material. If you have trouble coming up with articles for your newsletter, that's a good sign that blogging is probably not going to work for your organizations.
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