ผมแปลแบบจับใจความย่อ ๆ นะครับ Gerry McGovern คนนี้เขาเป็นผู้เชี่ยวชาญเรื่อง Web Content ครับ เขาแนะนำว่า Blog เป็นรูปแบบหนึ่งของการบันทึก (ใครจะกลับมาอัดคุณด้วยการยกเอา Blog ของคุณเป็นข้ออ้างก็ได้ เพราะฉะนั้น นักการเมืองไม่ควรเขียน ฮ่าๆๆๆๆ) เราอาจได้ประโยชน์จาก Blog ในทางอ้อม แต่ต้องแน่ใจว่าสิ่งที่คุณได้เคยเขียนไว้ใน Blog จะไม่ตามมาหลอกหลอนคุณว่าในอดีตคุณ
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In an age of instant messaging, you should take a lot more than
an instant to consider what exactly it is you’re
communicating.
Recent news reports tell us that controversial bloggers, Amanda
Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, hired by the John Edwards US
presidential campaign, are in trouble. Their previous blog posts
are being used to claim that they are “anti-Catholic vulgar
trash-talking bigots,” among other things.
Content is a record. What differentiates content from other
forms of information is that it is formal and recorded. It isn’t
a conversation in a cafe. It isn’t a chat at a bar. Blogging may
well be conversational but a key difference is that it leaves a
record that others can peruse.
Conversations tend to happen in context. People who converse
usually know each other and are often picking up from a previous
conversation. Conversations often leave things out because they
were covered in previous conversations. Conversations often
occur within groups, communities, clubs, gangs.
One of the first things a community decides is where the
boundaries are. Who is in and who is out? Who is the enemy?
Who’s the friend? Who’s to be hated? Who’s to be admired?
If you want kudos from a community one of the best strategies is
to attack the enemy. In certain communities, the more vicious
you can be the better. People will think you’re authentic,
honest, truthful, real. Break the taboo and say all those things
that those cowards won’t say in print, won’t say on the radio,
won’t say on TV.
What happens when your enemy (or your future boss) can read
everything? What happens when they can take what you’ve said
out of context, reshape it and fire it right back at you? What
happens if you’ve rushed to judgment without the facts? What
happens if you didn’t wait long enough to make sure?
We are constantly pressurized to respond instantly. But never
has there been a time when responding instantly carried so much
danger. An email written in haste, a blog post fired off, can be
repented at leisure after you lose your job or fail in an
interview.
Blogging is a wonderful form of communication but you must have
something to say and you must say it well. I scan a lot of
blogs. Some I just discount immediately. After the first 30
words I know they’re not for me.
Other bloggers will peak my interest. I’ll go back occasionally
over a period of weeks, perhaps months. A select few will be
chosen for regular visits. Most will fall by the wayside. I’ll
decide that this blog is not really very useful, that the
blogger has a few interesting things to say, but that’s it.
Blogging is a literary form. Great writers and great thinkers
who love writing make great bloggers. There are many great
thinkers who don’t write well. There are great writers and
thinkers who don’t have the time to write.
Blogging is a long-term investment of time, energy and
creativity. It is also about discipline, about getting the facts
right. Sure, there is impulse involved, but the impulse should
not drive you to write something that will make you look foolish
in a year’s time.
Jakrapong.com 