The Red Cross has put up a banner page that links back to places for you to give.  Its textbook sell side advertising.  They put up the ads and people just come and grab them.  Smart idea!  So, in addition to donating a few bucks, if you can donate some pixels to spread the word on where to give, that would greatly be appreciated.

I'm just curious about who is reading.  If you wouldn't mind, please take 10 seconds to answer the polls on the left column on my blog.  You need to click vote after each selection, and don't forget to click "back" in the results page so you can answer the next question.  The poll will be up for a week.  Thanks for your time.  I'm curious about the results.

Since a good chunk of you are new, I thought I would add some links to what I consider to be some of my better posts, so now I have a new linkroll down the left sidebar.

Also, I just posted a couple of new pictures to my photo section on the blog. 

Enjoy the weekend.  I'm off to take a ride on my new pre-owned bike from Craigslist.  I bought a Trek 7100 yesterday.

Hilarious!  Thanks Hunter!

Link: This is going to be BIG! - Jamba is a goldmine..

"Still amazed by the volume constriction that seems to occur during the blending process. I mean, you can suck down a smoothie with no problems, but try to eat four scoops of ice, half glass of OJ, two bananas, eight strawberries and half a frozen mango? No way."

So, you'll notice a few changes on the blog...  I finally got around to making all the menus work, which explains some of the weird posts you just saw.  Basically, I created a post that's going to act like a guestbook, so you can click the top menu and "Sign My Guestbook."  The second is that I have a Flickr badge now, so I'll have  a section/post for pictures.  I'll also be adding some to the Picture "Hall of Fame" or something like that.

More importantly, though, is that the Tag Team has linkrolls up and running.  The first one I've created is for my blogroll, which a lot of people have asked for.  If you'll notice, its in alpha order.  I don't think that's a feature yet, but Tim's working on it.  He coded that one for me on the fly when I realized that chronological order makes absolutely no sense when you're just creating a "Blogs I read" list.

Do you want a link roll?   Go here.

Then you can insert the little piece of javascript on your sidebar.

Link: del.icio.us/toby/toby:blog.

I love when I get links and I'm like, "What the hell is this?  ooooooh.... I get it."

So Toby from MusicMobs has built himself a blog in del.icio.us... well... sort of.

He's tagged and grouped his posts so that the front page has a group of four links... a link to del.icio.us links about stuff he likes, a link to outgoing links of interest, his linkroll, and his "blog", which is essentially a link to other things with a short comment in the extended field.

hmm...  Is del.icio.us going to give Typepad a run for its money?   Doubtful, but this is cool nonetheless. 

I have SO MANY things I want to blog about, take pictures of, etc. but I have no internet at home yet, and on top of that, my Treo is busted.  I get a new Treo on Friday and internet on Saturday, so you should see a lot of posts this weekend.  In the meantime, I'll be just letting all this stuff build up.  If I seem distracted or I'm sitting uncomfortably (depending on the quality of the blog post I'm thinking about), now you know why. 

Its amazing how disconnected I feel without e-mail on my phone and broadband in the apartment.  I might as well be living in Saskachawan.

So Fred had a blog post stolen from him yesterday and Michael Parekh had the same thing happen a few days before.  Their posts are winding up on this blog.

By who?   Fred's post listed an author link to this site.  But who is A1Technology?  There aren't any people listed on the site.

So I did my usual hard target search and it turns out that the guy responsible is relatively easy to find.

"A Fred divided against himself cannot stand!!"

So people are complaining about having to trudge through all of Fred's posts about his family, his travel, and his music to get to his posts about venture capital.  Its affecting how he posts and really has him troubled.  Frankly, I think some of his readers are being obnoxious, and I'd be offended if I were him.  Fred's a nicer guy than I am.

Didn't we all agree that blogs are a conversation?  Blogs are about people...  whole people.  Even if you only post about one particular subject, if its a post from the heart its about more than just politics, technology, marketing or law.  The smallest atomic element of blog isn't a post or a category.  Its me.  I am the smallest atomic element on my blog.  To really know me through this blog is to pay attention to all of it.  Sure, you can highlight a post or sort categories to find something in particular, but to break off part of it and disregard other parts to suit your liking or, even worse, suit an argument, is taking something out of what is a lot of surrounding context. 

This whole professional vs. personal conversation matter reminds me of our mixers for the SEMI mentoring program at NYSSA.  I remember this one hot-shot quant Stern student coming up to me and asking me if I knew/dealt with synthetic derivatives while I was at GM.  I told him that I knew what they were, but since this was an after work function, surely there could be more interesting things to talk about.  I mean, we were supposed to be assessing whether you wanted to get matched up for a whole summer with someone.  I didn't choose to mentor that student.

My blog has even less posts about VC and tech than Fred's does, mostly because I'm still learning and don't feel I have a lot to add to the already great conversations that are going on.  If someone asked me to cut down on my kayaking and softball posts, I'd tell them to take a hike. You wouldn't put up with that in person.  Why should you put up with that on a blog?  Imagine if an entrepreneur came to meet with Fred, and Fred opened the meeting by saying, "You caught me at a good time, because my daughter just won her basketball game."  What do you think his reaction would be if the entrepreneur responded by saying, "Yeah, I'm really not too interested in your family.  I'd like to talk about the video blogging space and hear your thoughts on that." 

I think that's just plain rude and it doesn't seem like that's the kind of person we'd like to do business with.  I say that because that's not the kind of person Brad and Fred seem to enjoy working with.  I'm pretty sure "investing in rude, self-centered people who aren't interested in others and can't empathize with the people they work with" isn't in our investment thesis.  It takes minimal effort to listen to someone's 2 minute family shpeel and almost no effort to skip through posts with titles like "Fordham loses another softball game" if you're reading on an RSS reader.  (At least its really easy on Feed Demon, anyway.)  Someone who can't listen isn't going to make a very good entrepreneur (and I'm not saying that b/c I know about venture capital... people who don't listen don't make very good anythings...) because they think they have all the answers and, well, no one does.  I don't.  My co-workers don't.  That's why listening and paying attention to the bigger picture is so important.

Not only that, if you have any networking skills whatsoever, you won't glaze over Brad's piloting story, but you'll listen intently and note it on the back of the business card you collect from him.  "Pilots plane."  Charlie:  "Kayaks on the Hudson."  Joshua:  "Doesn't like rollercoasters."  Inevitably, you're going to need something else to talk about sometime... a way to make a sincere connection.  Otherwise, you just have your business, and then what if we pass on it?  How will you keep up the connection?  Plus, what if some major life event gets blogged about and you're just subscribed to just the VC tag?  If I knew someone was reading my posts about technology and they totally skipped over the fact that I lost my family pet, I'd think they were pretty insensitive.  When I was at GM, every single placement agent and investor relations person worth their salaries knew about Larry Rusoff's three girls.  Did they really care about how the little ones were doing?  Maybe... maybe not, but it was worth mentioning, because it would bring the best out in him.

No, this is who we are.  Get to know the people of Union Square Ventures.  Fred's a family guy who loves music.  I'm into team sports and outdoor activities.  Brad's a pilot (the things you don't know about non-bloggers...) and a sailor... and he has twins.  We don't talk about business 100% of the time, and if you want to get to know us, you need to get to know us sincerely--meaning accepting the whole us. 

I will never separate my RSS feeds into categories.  Read all of me or read none of me.  Skim what you're not as interested in, that's fine, but don't expect me to cut my thoughts/persona into little chunks to be divided out by my audience segments. 

Link: Bubblegeneration - Evil Corporations Only.

Good blog.  Great resources.  Check the sidebar for some really interesting presentations and articles on digital music and peer created content.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the VP of Strategy and Planning of Trylon Communications.  It was a mass e-mail with the subject "BDI Blog Event - Continuing the Conversation".  Trylon co-sponsored this blogging conference that I went to a couple of weeks ago that I really didn't find particularly interesting.   Then, on top of that, they sent me another mass e-mail today.  Basically, they're touting their services, but if anything, they're making it blatently obvious that either a) they didn't actually attend the conference or b) they don't understand blogging at all.   Here's the jist of the exchange:

"Dear Charlie,                                                 

Thank you for attending the BDI blog event on May 3^rd.  I hope you found the presentation on “Blogs and the Impact on Media Companies” to be worthwhile.   On behalf of Trylon Communications which co-sponsored the event, and our President/CEO Lloyd Trufelman who spoke on the panel, we wanted to provide some follow-up since there was so little time to answer everyone’s questions on the topic."

I didn't go to the panel.  I signed up for it, but struck up an interesting conversation with a PR person from the American Foundation for the Blind and skipped out.  Now there's a productive group.  They just published quick tips on making blogs accessable to the visually impaired.

"Accordingly, I am forwarding links to some recent articles that might be of interest.  The first, by USA Today’s Kevin Maney, reports that blogs might not be new, but rather a continuation of a press trend that began in the 18^th century! "

You don't say?  Wow, that's really... um... interesting, I guess...  if I was into bar trivia.  The other links she sent?  One from New York magazine and the State of the Media report.  Nothing like passing links on blogging written by mainstream media to someone who not only blogs, but teaches an MBA course on blogging.  But that's not even the best part!  They link to a PDF press release (eek..  a press release!  How non-bloglike!) and cite that blogs are...

"a PR opportunity that our firm noted back when Web logs emerged in 2002 and has been practicing on behalf of our clients ever since."

Hmm... So you've been at this for 3 years and you tell me by linking to a press release in a mass e-mail that I never opted-in for?  Somewhere out there, Steve Rubel's "spidey-sense" is going off and he can't figure out where the trouble is.  Its right here, Steve... in my inbox.

"Considering our firm’s track record of delivering cost-effective, tangible editorial and corporate PR results exclusively for many top trade and consumer publishing and media clients nationwide since 1990 (all without strict billable hours or long-term contracts),  there may be a future match between our expertise and your company’s needs."

I highly doubt it.

So, I replied and gave them all the reasons why they should be blogging this, maybe politely informing me of their blog, and then never contacting me by e-mail again unless I ask for it, and simply letting me decide whether or not I want to subscribe to their blog.  I also asked where the opt-out link was on their e-mail.

The response?

I get this awful thing in my inbox...

  Now I'm on their "PR Ideas" HTML newsletter mailing list.  Unsubscribe?  I have to type in my name and my e-mail and then click a box and then click submit if I want out.  So, you send me mail, then I have to type in the e-mail address you just sent me this mail at in order to stop getting it?  I'm sketched out beyond words. 

Pubsub presented at the conference.  Let's see if they subscribe to their own Pubsub feed and find this.  I can't wait to hear their response.

Lesson for the day:   Don't spam a blogger.

So yesterday, I broke 1000 hits for the first time, and I'm on track to probably do close to that again today.  I have 80 subscribers via my Feedburner feed (I can maybe name 6 of them) and lord knows how many on my Typepad feeds.

However, most of you are pretty quiet.  Most of the people who comment aren't into RSS, so I've got this population of people that I don't know who like to read.  Now, my guess is that most of my traffic comes from Fred's blog, so you're reading b/c you want to hear what's going on with Union Square Ventures or our portfolio companies.  That's fine, of course.  But I'm just sort of curious who some of you are, so if you'd like to introduce yourself for the first time via comments, to me and the rest of the crowd, feel free.  I'm particularly curious who CBT the Mac User is and whether or not there are people who know me who check this out, but don't actually tell me that they read. 

Any friend of Judith Light is a friend of mine.  Come on, you know you watch Lifetime.  Admit it.  Plus, being able to trackback someone you just saw on VH1 makes the world seem just a bit smaller, no?

BTW...  VH1 really has the formula down pat no?   Its just the same show over and over again... celebrity clip, voiceover and aside from hilarious celebrity commentator.  Whether its "I love the 80's" or "Worst career moves ever" its gold, Jerry, GOLD!

Phillip Seymor Hoffman for Robert Scoble was just too easy, but nice work elsewhere.  Link: hyku | blog - Casting "Blog" the Movie - Josh Hallett.

Kottke wrote a post called A whole new internet? (kottke.org) and basically said that the business of creation on the internet, in many places, is getting in the way of creation itself--that the people that were once community and discussion leaders, like Mena Trott (or rather, anyone fitting a Mena-like profile), are now too busy making businesses out of tools to contribute to the community in the same way.  Mena responded here. 

I'm sure it was a lot of fun when today's doers were doing things out of their basements and they had the time to be the leading voices.  But, you can't do that forever.  Things change... and they change for the better.  Would Six Apart, or blogging in general, be better of Ben and Mena were still coding out of their house?  Same thing with Joshua Schachter.  Would del.icio.us be better off if Joshua continued working a fulltime job and then slaving away late at night and on weekends building this great service?  No way!  Truth is, a little more in the way of resources and organization can do great things for a grassroots, individual effort.  Its not the solution for everyone, but it works in many situations when done right.  Maybe the niche little tech community loses a voice to a bit of distraction, but the whole non-bleeding edge community gains as a result, and their feedback, their voices, and their insight are just as valuable as anyone elses.  The Mena-likes are not contributing less now because they blog less, they're contributing MORE with their deeds.  It reminds me of when people say that you're not successful if you're only a teacher.  To me, if you've enabled the minds of others, you've used your own mind in a very positive and productive way.

As user generated content becomes more important, does identity become less important?

I was thinking about this when I was watching Scoble and Steve Gillmor talk about attention.xml in their little home movie.  Was I watching because its was Robert Scoble and Steve Gillmor?  Eh... Not really.  I mean, that's how I found the video, because I'm more likely to find things from the more popular blogs, but when I was consuming the content--watching the actual video, I don't think I really cared who they were.  In fact, I had to look it up to remember who Steve Gillmor was.  I forget "who" I'm reading all the time, especially when I read RSS feeds and they strip away the format.

I think, in today’s world, the playing field of publishing has never been more level, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the NY Times of a blogger…  your stuff has to stand up on its own.  Legitimacy comes more from being vetted and approved by the community at large than by reputation. 

What about my own content?  Does the amount of myself that I offer up to the masses make my identity more or less critical?  When I post on my blog, my thoughts, in my view, belong to everyone...they become part of a community wide conversation, to be clipped, quoted, linked to, commented on and to inspire new thoughts.  Sure its on my blog, but what does “ownership” really mean?  Do I really own my content if anyone can use it?  Google makes money off my content--a lot more than I do.  So will Feedburner, at some point...and Bloglines and whoever.  I certainly don't feel like I own it when its offered up to the public.

As for my identity, do people read my stuff because I'm Charlie O'Donnell?  Maybe some.  Do people read because they think I'm some punk analyst that has a greater chance of spilling the beans on the del.icio.us valuation than Fred does?  Probably, but again, that's about the content, not about me specifically.  They'd read the blog of Benny, the front desk guy at 915 Broadway, if they thought they'd get the same information out of him. And yet, because of all of this user generated content, we now we have more personal information about ourselves that ever before.  We know about Brad Feld's reading habits, Jen Chung's eating habits, and my cholesterol level. 

Given the old rules of supply and demand, one might argue that the more information that gets put out there, the less valuable it is, but in Web 2.0, that’s not necessarily true.  To a point, the more information you have about me, the more valuable it is.  Knowing that I am a Mets fan might be valuable, but knowing that I’m a Mets fan and a kayaker is even more valuable, especially if you’re trying to sell me a paddle with a Mets logo on it via AdSense.  However, is information like that valuable because I, Charlie O’Donnell, am a kayaking Mets fan?  Not really, because if I was the only one, you couldn’t really make a business out of selling one Mets paddle.   No, what really makes my identity valuable is the small group that I belong to—the subset of kayaking Mets fans, and blogging, social networks, Web 2.0 is all about that…  small groups.  What makes Scoble and Gilmor’s conversation meaningful to me is the fact that these two guys are connected to a subset of other like-minded people that they have not only been influenced by, but that they will also influence, and I find this group to have value.  Their conversation, in the grand scheme of the world, isn’t that important, but to an analyst at a VC firm—any analyst, not just me… the group of VC analysts—it is important.  This is what helps give value to things like the list of RSS feeds I subscribe to or the things I tag in del.icio.us.  Both put me in the context of a group and say much about me… or rather, the kind of characteristics people in my small group share. 

Sure, Charlie O'Donnell has a unique voice in that group…   or does he?  I tend to think that, more and more, its not about my unique voice, but more of the aggregate conversation my small group is having that is really meaningful.  If I’m not taking part in a conversation, then I’m just grandstanding and talking for my own benefit—not particularly valuable to anyone but me. 

At work, I use a fancy tablet with all the bells and whistles.  At home, I have a four year old computer that runs on hamster power.  My dad uses an abacus and AOL dial-up to connect to the internet.  Everyone's got a different way of getting on and, unfortunately, everyone's got their screen set to a different resolution.  So, while older computers were struggling to keep my columns squeezed next to each other, Fred, for example, was complaining that I was only using half the screen.

So, I went to Learning Moveable Type, as I do for all of my template questions and searched for "screen resolution."  Of course, Elise's site had the answer, this time written not by Ms. Moveable herself, but by Arvind Satyanarayan.   The solution was to make my widths relative to each other.  So, in my stylesheet, instead of making my container 800px wide, I made it 95% wide, so its fits across 95% of your screen.  I did about a 40%/60% mix for columns and we'll see how that works out.  So now, everyone should be happy, even if they're surfing via abacus.

I love making everyone happy.  Between the new two column format and the white on gray, I think the readability of my template has gone up tenfold.  Blogs tend to be much more effective when reading them doesn't burn your retinas.
 

***UPDATE...   As Principal Sousa himself, in addition to several other people, pointed out, he did not ban "blogging" per say...   just access to myspace.  However, I still stand by my opinion that this isn't the right way to go.  First of all, who is anyone to judge that what goes on at MySpace doesn't have value in its purpose as a social network and a platform for self-expression.  Certainly the school promotes socializing during school hours, right?  Are the students not allowed to talk to each other in the hallways either?  Not everyone expresses themselves in the school play, and for some students, its important for them to be able to express themselves on MySpace...   and the site's heavy use underscores the need for proactive education on responsible maintainence of a public online identity.  Blocking the site isn't the answer... especially because students can just as easy write e-mails or, as I've learned, blog elsewhere with the same exact content.  So, no, this principal didn't ban blogging... he singled out one blogging site and decided that the kind of self-expression that was going on at MySpace wasn't appropriate for school use.  This, I fundamentally disagree with.  For many students, their MySpace pages, much the way LiveJournal pages act, are an integral social support network and an outlet.  Its not for adults to read and understand, and certainly not for them to judge.   So, I correct myself, but I still disagree with his actions.  As you can see, my letter is not nasty....  its actually agrees with some of the Principal's concerns, and just offers some alternative, proactive solutions.  It was met with a curt, unfriendly response that I will not post.***

Thanks Danah for bringing this to our attention.   I'm sure Principal Christopher Sousa of Proctor Junior - Senior High School in Vermont, the school administrator who blocked his students' access to blogging sites, is going to get lots of blogger hate mail, so I sent him a note with some constructive comments and positive suggestions for a more proactive approach to his situation.  This reminds me of when Our Lady of Guadalupe, my elementary school, banned Bart Simpson t-shirts on dress down days. 

I've included my note below.  If anyone else would like to write Mr. Sousa an equally constructive letter telling him about how positive and educational the use of blogs can be, he can be e-mailed at sousac@proctorhs.org.  Please, no profanity or blogger hate mail.  Keep it professional. 

Christopher,

I heard about your recent blogging ban and I would like to offer some alternative suggestions. I agree with you that there are lots of ways that young people are blogging that are not particularly educational. And, there are certainly risks associated with the public posting of personal data on the web. However, an outright ban does nothing to solve the problem. It only pushes off this non-educational, potentially dangerous behavior to non-school hours.

As an alternative, I would suggest holding a series of classes, potentially for both students and parents, on productive uses of blogging and the proper way to safeguard personal information over the web. Blogging is not just about putting one’s favorite bands on MySpace. I run a website called www.successblogging.com that talks about how blogging can be used as a career tool. I just had a speaking engagement at the New York Society of Securities Analysts with 50 financial professionals interested in this new communication platform. Blogging can be a great marketing and self promotion tool, as well as a great source of industry information. As an investment analyst for a venture capital firm, I subscribe to over 75 blogs related to technology, marketing, and investing and regard it as a vital source of up to the minute information and commentary. Many of these bloggers are experienced professionals that maintain impressive offline credentials as well.

I am also mentoring a student from my alma mater, Fordham University, and we are currently developing some ideas on how she can use a blog as professional journal in order to record her internship search and career interests, not only as a way to promote herself, but also to have a place on the web where prospective employers can be impressed with her drive and insight. Students need to realize that they will be “Googled” in the future when they go out looking for jobs, and the blogs they are creating will become permanent parks of their record. Without such teaching, they will fail to take advantage of an important opportunity.

Many schools, when first instituting computer networks, hesitated to even connect students to the internet, for fear of them accessing illicit sites and using it for non-educational purposes. Now, it is a qualification for just about any professional job to do research on the web or be able to communicate via e-mail. Instead of covering their eyes, why not show them a positive, educational approach to blogging, as many other schools are already doing.

Charles E. O'Donnell

So I tracked back to 20 or so amazingly knowledgeable bloggers to get them to come to this post.  Perhaps this isn't the intended or accepted use of trackbacks, and they're certainly welcome to delete the trackback from their page if they feel it is inappropriate.  All I'm looking for is some feedback on this post which is very important to me. 

Shel Israel had a great idea when he posted his literary proposal on his blog to solicite feedback and I'm doing the same.  (Imitation being the sincerest form...)   Basically, I'm looking to write a book on blogging as a career development tool and the following is my literary proposal.  I welcome all contructive feedback.  Feel free to link to me or forward me around to friends, especially if they're in publishing.  I really think I have something here with this book, but I could definitely use the collective advice of The Blogosphere.  Thanks!!     -Charlie

____________________________________

Over four million people are doing it—up from a half million just a year ago.  John Kerry did it during the election.  Moby does it.  Al Roker does it, too.  It was the most searched term in Merriam Webster’s online dictionary in 2004.

While millions have become pundits, watchdogs and commentators thanks to “blogs”, many more are sitting on the sidelines waiting for more practical applications of the hottest online trend.  Not everyone wants to expose their personal lives for public viewing or promote political beliefs, but given a method of achieving meaningful and tangible results in their lives, millions more are likely to join the crowd.

Just as the internet changed the way we apply for jobs, research companies, and network with peers, blogging is quickly influencing how careers are developed.  Thought leaders in every industry are building up significant online followings through blogging.  Those that know how to find this collective wisdom are finding themselves at a distinct advantage in their career.  In addition, some people have even transformed themselves into thought leaders themselves by taking advantage of blogs’ unique ability for widespread promotion.

“Success Blogging” will be the first blog related book in the Career Development genre, aiming squarely to make internet job search books obsolete.  Books like Elizabeth Oakes’ “Career Exploration on the Internet: A Student's Guide to More Than 300 Web Sites!” and “Weddle's Directory of Employment-Related Internet Sites: For Recruiters & Job Seekers 2004” will soon be forgotten, making way for “how-to” professional and career blogging books and blogging indexes. 

Blogs are quickly becoming an indispensable source of industry information, networking, as well as a unique form of self promotion.  My book will detail practical applications of blogs for career advancement.  The book will first educate readers on what blogs are and how to access existing ones, with an emphasis on finding blogs with relevant industry specific and career information and integrating them into an internet user’s daily regimen.  Second, it will explain how readers can easily create their own sites, specifically with the purpose of career related self-promotion.  Lastly, I will explain how blogs can be a great tool for networking, fulfilling the promise that social networking sites will ultimately fall short on.  Throughout the book, I will focus on pitfalls they need to be careful about, such as judging the legitimacy of existing blogs as a source of information or maintaining professionalism on their own blogs.

The Market

     According to Technorati.com, the number of blogs has doubled every five months over the last year and a half.  Jason Calcanis, well known

New York

     Yet, blogs are still relatively unfamiliar territory to most people.  According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, as of early 2004, “… between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users have created diaries or blogs. In this survey we found that 11% of Internet users have read the blogs or diaries of other Internet users.”   This points to the need to convince internet users, and anyone else, of more practical uses for blogging.  Many still think of blogging as a “geek” practice, or they see it more like an online diary, which they may not be comfortable with. 

     By promoting blogs as a practical tool that should be a part of everyone’s career strategy, this book will “one up” all of the popular books on using the internet as a career search tool.  Current offerings are focused on directories of websites and social networking, but few of these authors have caught on to the blog phenomenon as a career tool. 

     Of the 22 books that appear on Amazon when you search on “blogs,” 14 of the books were written this year or are due to come out next year.  Several of the listings aren’t even books—publishers are scurrying to quickly release e-books or Audio CDs to catch the blog wave.  Most of these books are about the basics of blogging.  A book specifically about how blogs can be relevant to careers would leapfrog the competition and be the first of its kind.  If experts are right, and blogs become anywhere near as mainstream as e-mail, there will be blog related books in every vertical, from cooking to law, and most definitely in the career area. Books that focus on static websites with infrequently updated information will become obsolete.  These websites and portals will no longer be the preferred method of seeking out industry and employment information, losing out to up to the minute postings by blogging thought leaders and corporate blogs. 

     This book would be the first entrant into what is sure to be a large market for books related to career blogging.  Just as there are internet books that cut across all verticals, there will certainly be blog related books in each vertical as the medium continues its explosive growth.  There are currently about two dozen blog related offerings on Amazon.com.  However, almost all of these books are either technical introductions to blogs or social research texts on this new phenomenon.  This book would be in the Careers genre, as opposed to the Internet, Computer, or Sociology genre, where most of these other blog books are located. 

Chapter Outline

      Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter will set an inviting and friendly tone, by indicating that this book is written for internet users of a wide range of expertise, including beginners.  It will also briefly outline what readers can expect in rest of the book in terms of content, focusing on the practical “how-to’s” versus the technical details of blogging. 

      Chapter 2: What are Blogs and Who’s Blogging? 

The second chapter will explain what blogs are, where they came from, and the reason for their sudden popularity in 2004.  It will tell the story of blogging from the first bloggers to the entrepreneurs behind the most popular blogging sites, like Pyra Labs/Blogspot, Six Apart, and Live Journal.  It will also detail blogging’s explosion in popularity in 2004, especially around the election and the Dan Rather Memogate scandal.  This chapter will also cover the changing nature of the face of bloggers—once cutting edge “web geeks” and now rapidly becoming not only individuals from a wide variety of fields, but also large corporations, startup companies and professional or non-profit organizations. 

      Chapter 3: Why are they Relevant to My Career?

This chapter will introduce the topic of career development, and how a more competitive environment has increased the importance of industry knowledge, networking, and self promotion.  The chapter will draw the connection between the importance of hiring well and hiring “known commodities” from a network, emphasizing proactive career and network development.

This chapter also promotes the value of firsthand industry knowledge through networking, both for the purposes of being more aware of the latest trends, as well as getting a better understanding of where you might fit in an industry.  The book in general takes the position that more fitting a job is for you, the more success you are likely to have.  Therefore, blogs can help drive success by helping you identify, from the firsthand accounts of professionals, the specific areas within each sector that best fits your unique talents and interests.

Here, I will also briefly introduce the idea of blogs as a tool of self promotion as well as a form of professional journal.  It will discuss the potential benefits of blogging about your own work accomplishments as well as being able to have such an account when you take part in a hiring process.  Applicants to a position might find a well written account, in a blog format, of work accomplishments, industry analysis, etc to be a differentiating factor that leads to being hired..

      Chapter 4: Blogs and RSS:  How to Read Blogs Easily on a Daily Basis

Before the book can progress to discussing the practical uses of blogs, the reader must be educated on some easy to learn technical logistics on how to access different blogs.  This involves a description of RSS and how it differs from HTML.  It will also detail how users can organize their reading of multiple blogs by using a RSS feeds and a feed reader.  It will feature a comparison of currently available readers. 

This chapter will also discuss the non-technical aspects of integrating blogs into their daily lives, including decisions around time spent reading or writing blogs, and how a person decides how frequently they would like to tap into their blogs.

      Chapter 5: Mining the Blogosphere: Finding Relevant Career and Industry Blogs

Searching for relevant and interesting blogs to read can be very difficult.  Search tools like Google and Technorati search on words within blog content, rather than grouping sites into topical categories.  This chapter will cover the best ways to initially find a blog worth reading, and then to branch out from that first discovery through its commentary, traded links, and “Who I read” lists.  It will also discuss ways to quickly assess the quality of a blog and the qualifications of the author.

Another important piece of advice to the reader is to prune their feed lists.  The amount of content available on blogs can overwhelm someone in a short amount of time.  Readers should make sure they are keeping their readings within the scope that they set out on, so as to make sure the process of keeping up with their blogs isn’t a two hour a day exercise. 

      Chapter 6: Interacting with Industry Blog Communities

Just as there are effective and, moreover, proper ways to network with people at a cocktail party, there are definitely unstated “rules of engagement” in blogs.  Blogging has developed into a particularly positive medium, where large numbers of like minded people interact with each other, trade links, comment on each other’s blogs, and read some of the same blogs.  New entrants to the field need to understand the rules of the game and the best way to engage more experienced bloggers if they are to truly benefit from this great career tool.  New bloggers will be introduced to commenting and trackbacks, as well as commonly used methods of quoting. 

      Chapter 7: Creating Your Own Professional Blog: Who, What, Why, Where and How?

Blogging can be a unique tool for self promotion, enabling just about anyone to create a name for themselves as good as the content they can create.  However, a lot of work needs to go into clearly outlining a strategy, as with any kind of new product or marketing campaign.  This chapter will help readers create a blog that plays to their strengths—one that will be interesting and useful to readers.  It will focus on the following topics:

o       Who should create a professional blog?

Anyone with any kind of job can and should be writing a blog.  There are different types of blogs and new bloggers need to understand how each type or combination of types might fit their purpose.  This section will cover:

§         Career journalizing – A record of your career accomplishments

§         Industry commentary – Your thoughts on new developments or trends in your field of interest

§         Resource aggregation/facilitators – Creating a resource for others in your industry that connects to other links or provides information

§         Blogging for your business – Using blogs as a tool to generate brand awareness and customer loyalty

This chapter will also detail where users can create their blogs and what tools they can use.  It will describe the different features of each services and help users decide whether or not they want to go with a free service with less features versus a pay site. 

      Chapter 8: Content and Your Blog:  What to Write and What Not to Write

The value of a blog wholly rests in the quality of its content.  Before they start writing, authors need to decide the following:

§         How often Readers want to reasonably judge how often they want to post content, which is a decision that follows from both the nature of the content and the willingness of the blogger to make time to post.

§         What to blog  Great bloggers blog about what they know or they post interesting questions about what they don’t know, which requires a realistic assessment of the kind of content they are going to post.

§         What not to blog  Where will the bloggers “line” be.  Every blogger draws the line somewhere on what they are going to write about and what topics are off limits.  Bloggers expose their personal lives on different levels and new bloggers need to decide not only what they are comfortable posting about, but what their readers will be interested in and the consequences of getting too personal. 

Also, bloggers need to be aware of legal issues around blogging.  Can you get fired for something written on your blog?  Certainly.  I plan to interview several lawyers to get the details on privacy issues and libel, which new career bloggers need to be aware of. 

§         How to make it interesting  What is the unique angle that career bloggers will take in their writing that will make it interesting for a reader. 

      Chapter 9: Promoting Your Professional Blog

This chapter will detail not just ways to promote your blog, but also the strategy behind what kind of promotion one might seek.  Great blogs don’t need a ton of readers—they need a relevant following.  This chapter will detail how to promote your blog, both online and even offline in order to generate the audience that is right for them.

      Chapter 10: The Web as a Career Tool: Blogs vs. Websites and Social Networking Sites

This chapter will help the reader understand how blogs fit into the ecosphere of other types of online tools, including regular websites and social networking sites.  I will make the argument that blogs are quickly winning out over other tools as a means of career development and that blogs are the career development trend that people should be taking advantage of.  I will also discuss how blogs are likely going to fit into the employment process going forward, helping potential employers seek out and understand new hires and what they bring to the table. 

      Appendix: Index of Career Specific and Industry Related Blogs

As a useful resource, I will give the readers a head start in searching out relevant career blogs by listing a sizable number of blogs in a wide variety of careers, each with a small description and profile of who the blogger is and what kind of content they have on their site. 

About the Author

Charlie O’Donnell is uniquely positioned between the technology and career education worlds.  After graduating from

Fordham

Charlie also has an extensive track record of working on new approaches to career development.  His career advice blog, www.findmypath.com, has been featured in Newsday.  In 2003, Charlie collaborated with

Fordham

This post is an experiment of sorts--to see the network effect of the blogosphere in action to help get my mentee an internship.

I have been mentoring a bright young Fordham freshman for a few months now and she's trying to get an internship over the summer.  I have posted her resume below, and would like to say a few words about her.  Hopefully, someone who reads this blog will be interested in hiring a highly motivated young woman for a summer position where she can learn a lot and also contribute to real projects in a meaningful way.

I was impressed with Christina Maresca's enthusiasm right away.  She has been very engaged in our mentoring relationship and works very hard at school.  She is currently attending Fordham at the Marymount campus in Tarrytown, but will be transferring to the College of Business Administration at Rose Hill at the end of the semester.  She is a scholarship student and she is already involving herself on campus in leadership roles--becoming the Treasurer of the Italian club immediately after starting school.  She works two jobs while attending school--at the Gap and at the school's health center.

She has an interest in business, but one of the things we've discussed is that she needs some experience to help her explore her options.  I believe that she could make a great contribution to any firm she joins this summer and hopefully someone will take the same chance on her that GM took on me when I first started interning around the same age. 

If you contact Christina, please also leave a comment on this post.  It will be interesting to see how much interest this blog is able to generate and whether or not this new medium can help her out. 

And no, she does not have a blog of her own... yet.  However, I think if she gets something over the summer from this blog, it will go a long way to convincing her how blogging can help even a student's career and perhaps that will motivate her to blog her summer internship.  Keep that in mind.  If she gets her internship from a blog, and blogs her experience, it might make for an interesting story and good publicity for your company.