Blogging as a Professional Development Tool
Webmaster May 29th, 2005
Blogging is quickly becoming all the rage as people everywhere start one up. The problem is that many people don’t really know how to go about it. Many of the blogs out there are a hodge podge collection of posts that merely copies that of a traditional diary. Yes, blogs are the electronic equivelant of the traditional diary. However, you need to know how to go about it since the people that use the Internet are mainly searching for somenthing. The blog content needs to be meaningful and useful for the reader.
What exactly is a blog?
Blogs are frequently updated web pages on which authors post short comments about news items, interesting websites, their thoughts and more. Blogs are the newest information age revolution that allows individuals to express themselves to the world.
Writing and maintaining a blog is a compilation of individual thought (reflection) articles on a particular subject of interest. The idea that should be behind blogs is for you to reflect upon the experience and the subject matter involved and the meaning that you give it. By making it your responsibility to develop each reflection article can help you improve your learning on the subject matter and remember it. Learning is not about memorizing facts and figures. It is about being able to explain the concepts in your own words.
There are many blogs out there that look like a hodge podge of meaningless entries. The purpose of maintaining a blog on a particular subject can provide yourself with a window into your own learning throughout life. Turn those meaningless short posts into full and meaningful articles and essays that you will get more out of and visitors will enjoy reading.
For example, The HR Blog is designed to be an e-zine for Human Resources professionals and small business owners by providing useful articles and tools that can be downloaded for free. Substantial, useful, and meaningful content will lead to more new visitors, more repeat visitors, and more visitors adding your site to favorites.
Go SURFing!
The content in your blog should be in accordance with the SURFing Model. Think about what people do everyday when they are on the web. They are out in the ocean waiting for that big wave of meaningful content to come along.
1. Substantial.
2. Useful.
3. Relevant
4. Focused
According to the SURFing Model, the content the better. First of all, search engines love content. The more content that you have the better the chance you showing up high in the search results.
Next, the content must Useful to the reader of your blog. For example, adding hr forms for your readers to download for free will get them coming back for more and tell their friends and colleagues about your site.
Keep your blog focused on a particular subject area of interest, such as human resources, e-learning, resume writing, etc. Don’t have a hodge podge collection of posts. This will only confuse your readers more than help.
Keep these points in mind when maintaining a blog.
Write your posts in essay form. Formulate your idea, write and outline, then start writing. What feels important/unimportant and why, what did you like or dislike and why. Maintaining blogs in this form will improve your critical thinking and evaluating skills.
Let’s say that you maintaining a blog about recruitment and selection strategies. You find an article in the latest issue of Workforce magazine that you like. Tell your readers, in essay form, what you learned from the article. What key insights, new thoughs, new ways of viewing organizations did you learn from reading the article. What happened that made a difference to you.
Always draw on your own experience when writing an article in your blog. This reflection is all about. Reflection is always based on some sought of activity in your life, good or bad. There is adversity, and with that adversity comes learning and growth.
By keeping these points in mind when maintaining your blog, you will not only increase your chances of mastering the subject matter that you are trying to learn, but also provide high quality information to visitors searching the web for information.
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