Blogging: A time and a place?

Funny, isn’t it. Not so long ago I’d never have considered publishing personal thoughts in any shape or form. That scruffy notebook under the bed was the place for them. For a start, there wasn’t an instantly accessible medium (as such), but even if there was who’d be remotely interested in what I had to say? Or not say, as the case may be. Remember, many blogs are transcripts of what people think – based on a never-ending internal dialogue – and not necessarily what people would actually ever ‘say’. And therein, perhaps, lies the magic of blogging.

What people say in public, and what they’re comfortable saying, is in certain cases a very fine line. You wouldn’t necessarily expect much from the author of a blog about Eggs, Bacon, Chips and Beans other than information about, well… ummm… eggs, bacon, chips and beans. What you see is what you get. But just imagine reading Kofi Annan’s personal blog, and I mean his personal blog. What on earth would it say – what does Kofi really think about the state of the planet? What worries him – guard down and politics aside? I doubt I’ll ever know, unless I manage a drunken 4am fireside drink with the guy after a conference somewhere…

One of the earliest comments I received about my kiwanja website was that it was incredibly personal, just as much a site about me as it was about my work. Not good, they said. But this was always my intention. People that know me will realise that I am my work. But despite this, three months ago (when I decided to give blogging a try) my first instinct was to create a new site, an anonymous one, where I could say whatever I wanted and then somehow distance myself from what I had written. What nonsense that was, and I realise it now.

So I added a blog to my kiwanja site and began brain dumping there. As a ‘business’ site – well, one ‘advertising’ my wares at the very least – my logic was simple. If people didn’t like what I thought then I wouldn’t want to work with them anyway. Risky, but at the end of the day why pretend to be someone you’re not for the sake of getting the gig? I’m passed that now.

One thing that blogging has re-inforced for me is this. It allows me to be myself, something that many people in the higher reaches of corporate and company life – Kofi included – perhaps cannot. In public, at least.

Unless, of course, he’s blogging anonymously somewhere… Now, wouldn’t that be a find?