The World Of Work 2006 Team

Now this post by Hugh Macleod of Gapingvoid is one mighty important post to bloggers. Very very important. Cos it's about HOW blogs work IN THE BACKGROUND.

Hugh's saying something vital.

I'll paraphrase him in my terms: 'If you have a very good blog, high quality, informative, and you post often, and you have a commitment to excellence, then there are three major consequences: (1) Your blog will display your skills to the world and show how good you are at what you do; (2) You become someone that other people can recommend; (3) You become someone who can recommend people to people.

Here's the post in HIS words:

on becoming more viral in the offline world...

Had an interesting conversation with Anu Gupta yesterday, all to do with how blogs make people more viral, even in the offline world.

Take HR, which is Anu's profession. I know very little about HR. What I know about HR could could probably be written on the back of a postcard.

So let's say I'm talking to some hotshot at a cocktail party, and he mentions he's looking to hire someone in HR.

As I know nothing about HR, nor do I know anyone in that profession very well, in the pre-blog world I would probably have just gone, "Sorry, can't help you", and quickly have changed the subject.

But with blogs I can tell the hotshot, "Well, there's this guy named Anu Gupta that works in HR. Don't know much about him. Met him once or twice before. Nice guy. Seems pretty bright. Here's his link. Maybe talk to him etc."

Suddenly a connection between the hotshot and Anu is made, without the bridge (i.e. me) having had to risk any of his (my) social capital, via making the recommendation.

In other words, the better your blog, the less qualified I have to be to recommend you. The easier and less socially risky it is for me to spread your story. Because all I have to do is give the guy your link, and hopefully your blog does the rest.

And if the same is true for everyone else who knows you, suddenly, like Anu, you've become a lot more viral.

Which surely is a good thing, right?

http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/002610.html

Roy Blumenthal's blog is Coffee-Shop Schmuck