Blogs: Engaging the reader

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the comments. Upon reflection I think my comments on the top 19 eLearning blogs reflect the fact that blogs are still very new and much like the early websites many people are trying to figure out what the structure of a good blog should be and what content should be presented. Both of these (structure and content) are obviously very subjective and based on the objectives of the blogger.

In my case I have tried to focus on very substantive issues related to eLearning that I think people would find useful. At the moment my focus is on trying to share some of the common mistakes and misperceptions about eLearning. I started my discussion with the issue of risk and I am now moving onto the SCORM standard. Both of these discussions are focused primarily on how risk and SCORM are perceived in relation to the eLearning industry. My objectives are to demystify eLearning and to share some of my lessons learnt with customers/potential customers and developers.

I think the main challenge with blogs is to make them entertaining while at the same time sharing something that may be beneficial to a participant in the eLearning industry. A second challenge is to get people to participate in your blog. So, how to do share your thoughts/lessons learnt without seeming to be the expert (which I am clearly not). Coming across as an expert may intimidate people, lessing the chances of them responding to your blog posts. By the way, you have had great success overcoming this obstacle based on the many responses that you have got on your entertaining and educational blog.

I digress. In response to your question as to what should be discussed in blogs I would say it is very subjective and it depends on the audience that you are trying to attract. I have noticed that many of the current corporate/business blogs try to cover all the bases i.e. covering news, books, tools, articles, best practices, personal news etc. Sometimes this comes across as a little disorganized and it is hard to filter through all the information to get to the meat. Although I like the idea of a blog, I am not sure that it will be that helpful to people unless there is some sort of structure. A collection of unassociated thoughts and ideas is great if you have a lot of time to filter through the posts, but most people don’t have the time to do this. I guess my struggle at the moment is to come to grips with the blogging format and trying to decide what value I can provide to my audience. The ultimate value of a blog is to get people to engage with you and to share their ideas, rather than it being a static medium. I would love to have your thoughts on how you managed to achieve this.