BLOGGING PRACTICE: THE BLOG REFORMATION

The Blog Reformation:

Where Creativity+Technology+Mastery=Leadership

Want to be a leader?  Whatever your field of passion and expertise, to be an effective leader today you need to master a wide range of creative and technical skills.  You need to know how to think creatively.  You need to know how to express yourself with compelling words and images. You need to have fire in your belly to be the change you want to see in the world.

And now, you also need to master a range of internet skills to connect with, learn from and influence others.  Enter the Blog!

Law Professor and Syndicated Columnist Hugh Hewitt has written a best-selling book on what can be called the Blog Revolution:  BLOG: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World.  (See www.HughHewitt.com)  BLOG is all about “Why you must know how the blogosphere is smashing the old media monopoly and giving individuals power in the marketplace.”

Hewitt writes: “Millions of people are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition. This has happened many times before – with the appearance of the printing press, then the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television and the internet. Now the blogosphere has appeared, and it has come so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts.”

Hewitt continues: “Change isn’t coming. It is here. Information is being absorbed in new and startlingly different ways from new, and until recently, unknown sources. Your customer, your congregant, your critic is changing. You need to think that through. I can help.”  I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to get a sense of the new territory out there, and the opportunities it brings to our desktops.

No longer do you need to feel powerless in the face of environmental destruction, human rights violations, corporate fraud and malfeasance, escalating violence against women and children, political scandals, rampant globalization, poisoning of our food supply, and the destruction of constitutional principles upon which our country is founded.

 Nor do you need to feel that your voice does not have value in the global, ongoing human conversation that the blogosphere now makes possible.  You have something to say, and you now have powerful technology on your desktop to enable you to say it, whether to an audience of one, of hundreds, or of millions.

Well over ten million people have visited Hugh Hewitt’s web site and read his opinions.”Why does this visitor traffic matter?” Hewitt asks. “People’s attentions are up for grabs. If you depend on the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you.”  

Anyone can speak out today, and if they have ideas that are exciting and useful, the audience will gather.

 Thousands upon thousands of bloggers have developed dynamic, lively communities, and are ready to “swarm” around current issues of significance when the need arises.

There are many examples from recent years of the history-changing power of a “blog swarm.”

Again, from Hewitt: “You should thus be persuaded that the last couple of years have been important for blogging. But it is much bigger than that. That’s like saying that 1517 was a big year for Martin Luther. Both statements are true but do not communicate the scope of the change that was initiated in those years.

“ To get a glimpse of what is coming, try examining what followed Luther’s challenge to the authority of Rome. As Luther was to Leo, so bloggers are to Main Stream Media, and Luther’s impact wasn’t limited to the Vatican.” 

In the exponentially expanding influence of talented and persuasive bloggers, and the very size of this new blogosphere itself, I am reminded of Future Trends Analyst John Naisbitt’s predictive book: Global Paradox: The Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful its Smallest Players.

This time is now here, and the opportunities for positive social change powered by passionate thinkers and bloggers are unlimited.

True self-publishing has come of age, right now, in our lifetimes. It is no longer enough to master just print and graphic media and turn your work over to a magazine, newspaper or network

You can now be your own publisher, network, and distribution system. The unimaginable power of the internet is right in front of you, on the same screen that you are reading from right now.

So what does all this mean for you if you want to be a thought-leader in today’s world?  It means that you have to have a clear vision, purpose and passion, and are willing to do your homework. It means you must know how to write well and persuasively.

 It means that you are willing to keep learning, reaching, stretching and growing so that what you have to say will be relevant, compelling, unique, useful, provocative, elegant, and strategic in terms of your vision and message.

It means that you will do whatever it takes to master the computer skills needed to become cyber-literate.

Scary, frustrating, crazy-making as it may be, you will buy guidebooks, take online courses,  file help tickets, and call on friends and sometimes strangers, to help you become a Wizard. And it means that you will continue to learn, ongoing, everything you need to know to master the medium

This is exciting, and also motivating, when you really grasp the potential audience for your words. The numbers are beyond anyone’s imagination in terms of the audience you can reach. But you will not reach them unless you have mastery both of creative content and leading edge communication tools.

Your opportunity today to become a leader in world peace, politics, environmental reform, human rights, social justice, health, social responsibility, education, sustainable agriculture, spirituality, transformational media, the arts, or literature (and all areas of human endeavor) is bounded only by your energy, enthusiasm, and desire to contribute to a positive change of consciousness and right living on our planet.

Welcome to the blogosphere. History has been waiting for you.  There is no better place to start speaking up than right here in our Zaadz community.  GO!

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Fine tune your writing skills:

DIVING DEEPER:  A Writing Workshop

Keep in touch with resources for more effective blogging and writing:

CAMP HAPPINESS: Being Better Bloggers

Now go do the ‘shining your Light’ thing!