By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I feel lucky to be alive and on
the cutting edge of what is fast becoming The Age of Blogging...
and you should feel the same way.
And if, by some chance, you don't
know what a blog is and how it works for your benefit, you are
lucky again; I'm going to reveal the true importance of blogs and
some key observations on how to derive maximum benefit from them.
Why blogging is sweeping the 'net
and the globe.
Consider this.
The history of machine publishing
begins in 1454 with the preparation of what became known as the
Gutenberg Bible. It took over a year before finished copies were
available. This was thought to be -- and was -- a great advance;
hitherto books had to be copied by hand, a process that resulted
in many errors, of omission and commission.
Printing the Gutenburg Bible was a
laborious process; as a result today just 21 copies are known.
Over the centuries publishing
developed.
Books were easier to print...
there were many more publishers to print them (thereby increasing
the number of opinions and points of view available).... and in
due course publishing advanced to where books could be universally
distributed and available.
But all this, important as it was,
was as nothing compared to the most signal advance since Gutenburg
himself.
This is the blog.
A blog is the publishing marvel
which enables any person anywhere to post and distribute any
message they want any time they want. It expunges the middle man,
called the publisher, from the publishing equation and enables the
new publishers -- you! -- to set their own agenda and make sure
that their message is written just so... and distributed worldwide
within minutes.
The implications of this
development are staggering. Until just the other day (in
historical terms), to get your message out to the world, you
either had to persuade a publisher or his designated
representative (an editor) to publish your article... or you had
to establish your own publication with all the expense and
uncertainty that entailed.
These days the process is
radically different.
Subscribe to a blogging service.
Write your message. Update your message as necessary and
desirable, even daily.
And, always and forever, keep
building your subscriber lists so that more and more people see
what you have written.
No longer must writers cringe like
Uriah Heap before publishers; you, not they, control your content
and can shape and refine it to the satisfaction of a single
individual -- you! This has never happened before in the history
of mankind and is an event of the highest significance for our
species as a whole and the crucial availability and distribution
of information.
So, who's blogging?
Powerful institutions are not
always known for their ability to move quickly, understanding
change and working at once to use such change to their advantage.
But the advent of the blog has caused many to leap into this brave
new world. One of many examples is Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley,
Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts, a prince of the Church,
beloved of the Pontiff.
O'Malley has become one of his
Church's "go to" guys in the pedophile priest scandal
and its related sexual issues. Like other Church leaders, I
suspect O'Malley has been grievously unhappy about the constant
drumbeat of terrible press his beloved church has attracted. You
can imagine his eminence's eyes popping as he learned about the
blog and grasped its implications. He probably jigged about his
office...
O'Malley no longer needs to submit
to the impertinent, probing questions of pesky reporters and their
insistent editors. Instead, he can shape and nuance his message
just the way he wants it, to the very last comma. This is an
unadulterated benefit for O'Malley... though not necessarily for
truth since those pesky reporters authority figures do not like...
are the means of digging, digging and digging some more; now they
would be, to a significant degree, cut out of the process. The
O'Malley's of the world can breathe easier.
Recently (June, 2011), O'Malley
used his blog to deal with a nasty issue that had parishioners of
every hue very angry indeed. A liberal priest (no, not a
tautology) had announced a "liturgy to commemorate Boston
Pride 2011," an annual celebration of the city's gay,
lesbian, and transgendered community. Conservative Catholics were
enraged, many of them blogging their anger.
This, then, had the result of
haviing the mass "postponed" (church-speak for "it
won't happen until hell freezes over, if then"). This, of
course, had the predictable result of angering the liberals... and
causing their blogs to erupt in a frenzy of vituperation.
What's a poor prince to do?
In years past, his eminence would
have been forced by the hostilities of his brethren to go before
the media and submit to questioning. That is not a thing princes
like to do; in fact they abhor this profoundly irritating and
degrading event of lese majeste'.
Now they blog... now no one ever
sees them sweat... because they no longer sweat at all!
O'Malley, thanks to his growing
proficiency as a frequent blogger, dealt with this more than
tempest-in-a-tea-cup when HE wanted, how HE wanted... his blog
carefully nuanced to his liking. In due course, working behind the
scenes, with the message completely his without having to bother
with reporters, the matter was solved.... at least this time.
Not as smart: the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Whereas Cardinal O'Mallley got the
point about blogs and their utility, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
senior cleric in the Church of England, did not. In the most
recent (June, 2011) issue of the "New Statesman"
magazine, his grace lashes out at the Conservative - Liberal
Democrat coalition, which came to power 13 months ago. Williams
was appointed in 2002 by Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Willams, way behind the technology
curve, missed a grand opportunity not merely to get his message
out to a worldwide audience far larger than the readership of a
single magazine, but to grow his list (something no serious
blogger can overlook).
He opted for the traditional paper
method... and that instantly limited the effectiveness of what he
had to say. Had he, instead, set up a blog and posted his message
there... his readership would have exploded and he would have
added a host of new readers to his blog... where he could have
worked early and late to convert them to his often irritating
point of view.
His grace will learn, however; he really has no choice. No
"leader" of any kind does. For all, for each, it's "blog
or atrophy and die." The same applies to you... which is why
you must blog today, tomorrow, forever, or create your own
irrelevance and obsolescence. a state of affairs you would really
not relish.
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