RSS 
Email 
Twitter
FacebookVenn Diagram of What a Blog Should Be About
July 22nd, 2008 | Posted in Technical Writing 8 Comments »
Jane made this cool little Venn diagram the other week.
What belongs on a blog
It’s intriguing and feels true, but it’s meaning seems just out of reach. What do you think it means?
it means all the knowledge and experience you have gained from the world and have published with your own review. It is about what is right and whats wrong. Its about your innerself and your online presence. Its like a life.
It’s a lesson I need to learn about my other blog. Just enough info to be interesting. Not enough to bore.
Peace – D
I agree, Tom–my first reaction to the diagram was a gut feeling that “yes, this is exactly how it is.” It’s a concept that’s difficult to put into words, which now seems obvious to me looking at all the drivel that floats around the blogosphere.
On one hand you have everything in your mind’s discussion that is important to you. On the other hand you have everything else, all the minutia. The trick to compelling blogging (and any communication, for that matter) is finding the overlap of what’s important for you and what’s important for the rest of the world. Your audience likely doesn’t need to know every little detail–unless you’re telling them something relevant, you’re just noise in their world.
And that’s hard, right? Determining what details you have to communicate that are relevant for your reader. It’s more than just deciding what should and shouldn’t be blogged or communicated. It’s about finding relevance. Those little tidbits that add something substantive to the discussion at large.
I think it’s the difference between narcissism and self-indulgence, and education and service. The former produces coma-inducing drivel; the latter produces compelling dialogue with readers.
I don’t need to read someone’s blog posting about how Kittie Poo harked up a hairball again today. It’s just noise.
Now, write a blog posting about how your desire to get Kittie Poo to stop harking up hairballs every day led you to find an unexpected and highly effective holistic hairball remedy, and you’ve contributed something valuable to the larger human dialogue.
When I started blogging, my visions were not cleat. I just wanted to have my online identity so I went for without a much consideration. Now, when I have almost 10 blogs with different PR and good earning, My vision is so clear and I know that for what reasons we should have blogs. I like your demonstration and view for blogs and their importance.
Flusches last blog post..GPS Defense Fails in Traffic Court
You are very right and the intersected part is the only stuff which can be appraised or can be shown to the world. How big the intersection area will be, your blog will bloom and nourish that much. I think there might be a few people who can analyze this world and can give some good advice, i know all of them have blogs.
What Whitney said (*waves at Whitney*)! That, and the difference between the stuff in your head that no-one ever sees, and the stuff that’s your private or public persona. So, really there’s three parts – the ‘no-one ever sees this’ bit, the person you are to those close to you, and the public person you are to the world at large.
Blogs are probably a bit like that too. Some delve into the deepest darkest recesses of their author’s mind, some show parts of the personal (but still private) side, and some are just the public face.
Rhondas last blog post..Making faces
Plenty of folks are ranting at the world. We all have long trains and random thoughts running through our mind.
Only those things that you both whisper to yourself, and would tell to others – those are the unique thoughts that belong in a blog.
The rest is either too repetitive or too revealing.