To Blog or Not to Blog?

Danelle and I have a little difference of opinion about my blog.

I love it. I think it helps keep my writing skills sharp, demonstrates the power and effectiveness of word-of-mouth to build an audience and provides hard evidence of my proficiency in the types of Web 2.0 tools I'm telling potential employers I have expertise with.

Danelle hates it. Actually, her exact words recently were "violently opposed." She thinks it reveals too much personal information about me and our family, sometimes presents me as crass and unintelligent and raises red flags for potential employers about my discretion (or lack thereof) and commitment to my job search.

Here's the thing -- we're both right.

With the exception of the effect on my writing abilities (and even that's somewhat subjective), all of the items above are based primarily on people's perceptions. I think that e-mailing info about one of my posts to The Big Lead, one of the most widely read sports blogs around, that resulted in them linking to my post and bringing in hundreds of new readers was a fantastic viral marketing move. Someone else may find it self-serving and disingenuous. Danelle thinks putting a picture of Zak in a post is a breach of our family's privacy. I can't discount or dismiss her feelings, since she is by definition a part of the family. But I thought it was harmless and the most relevant image I could find to go with the post.

On a side note, when I observed that her heightened concern about our safety meant she probably watched too much 20/20, she retorted that maybe I don't watch enough. Touché.

What's at the heart of these different perspectives? There's been suggestions that much of it is generational. Younger people are accustomed to more transparency in their lives thanks to everything from "reality TV" to YouTube. Older folks -- and at our age Danelle and I both fall into that category for any discussion of the internet -- have more clearly defined boundaries for what they share with other people, especially total strangers.

My mom drove that point home one day when I excitedly told her that I'd reconnected with some friends from high school on Facebook. She snorted and replied, "I don't use MyFace or Spacebook or any of that crap." Once I stopped laughing, I told her she probably had no idea how completely awesome that remark was.

Fast-forward a couple of months, and that same mom (I only have one) jots the note "Enjoying blog!" on my Father's Day card. If blogging and social networking are fundamentally similar parts of the whole "Web 2.0" phenomenon, how can she embrace one and dismiss the other? Possibly because one opinion was based on substance, and the other on something else. Maybe misinformation, maybe fear of the unknown. But she didn't even know the names of the two biggest social nets in the world -- she just knew she had no use for them.

This is where I think the rubber really hits the road. Blogs aren't inherently "evil" or "dangerous" in the same way that video games, heavy metal and comic books aren't. It's all about how they're used. If someone blogs on company time, or blogs about how much they hate minorities or shares confidential business information on their blog, it's really not the blog that's the problem. If blogs didn't exist, those behaviors would just manifest themselves in different ways. Blogs don't get people fired; people get people fired.

Is there a risk that a potential employer will stumble across my blog, read the line from a past post where I use the word "pit" in talking about how difficult it is to apply deodorant with a broken wrist and conclude that I'm too vulgar to hire? I suppose so. But do I really want to work for a company that would reach that sort of conclusion based on one data point and discount everything else they learned about me? Probably not.

Ditto for an organization that's uncomfortable with transparency. I believe strongly that the benefits of having an open dialogue with customers, empowering them to be critical and embracing those criticisms, has benefits that far outweigh the potential risks. Where the line gets drawn of how much information is too much is certainly open to debate; but as far as I'm concerned that debate is a healthy one to have.

Back to the fear of the unknown issue -- it's human nature to demonize things we don't understand. So some try to blame society's current ills on things like "the internet," as if it was a conscious and malevolent entity and not just a series of tubes. But all "the internet" basically does is accelerate the pace and extend the reach of communication.

Pen pals and ham radio were once the most techonologically advanced ways we had to try and fulfill another aspect of human nature, the need to connect with other people. Jim Saccomano, VP of PR for the Denver Broncos, noted that Thomas Paine was probably one of the first bloggers. He circumvented the mainstream press and used conversational language to speak directly to his audience in his Common Sense pamphlet. So while the way people use the internet today is more evolution than revolution, the tool still freaks people out. I blame Hal from 2001 for the irrational fear of computers, but for whatever reason the fear exists.

Heather Armstrong strikes me as a case of where both these factors combined to have unfortunate consequences. I heard her speak as part of a panel at the SXSW Interactive Festival in March. She's a "blogebrity" who's fairly well known in those circles for getting fired from her job back in 2002 for reasons that had something to do with her personal web site. I don't know the specifics. I haven't even read her side of the story in detail. But what's pretty obvious is that she and her employer had different perspectives on the transparency/privacy subject. And given that this happened in 2002 when the word "blog" couldn't even be used in Scrabble, I'm willing to bet that some folks in her company got the heebie-jeebies just from hearing the word "internet." Doesn't matter that she worked for a web development company; somebody in power over there just didn't get it and overreacted.

Another side note -- Heather's blog makes enough dough from ad revenues that it's now her family's sole source of income. Not bad for a fairly ordinary person who's extraordinarily comfortable being transparent and a halfway decent writer. So there's hope for the other 15 million of us with blogs, much like the hope I get when Zak throws a football that doesn't rotate end over end that he'll one day be an NFL quarterback.

I don't know exactly where this leaves me. I know that I'm going to keep blogging. But I also let Danelle see this post before I put it up and made a couple of changes at her request. I'm also going to probably cross lines from time to time in what certain people consider appropriate -- it's challenging to know that your mother-in-law and drinking buddy both read your blog. But at the same time it's not my purpose to shock or offend, and I'm going to apply what I consider to be common-sense standards to my language and subject matter.

And while Danelle and I may both be right, when it comes to finding my next professional opportunity I'm going to hope like heck that I'm a little more right.

I Don't Think Any Of These Would Even Get Me On "Stupid Human Tricks"

Being in the throes of a job search, I've spent a lot of time focusing on what my "marketable skills" are. Things that use impressive-sounding words like "communication campaign management" and "brand marketing." Things that look good on resumes and sound good in interviews, but are ultimately meaningless without some real roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty abilities to go along with them.

Danelle and I don't talk about our marketable skills with each other much. They're typically not very romantic, fun or all that interesting outside of professional settings. We enjoy our UNMARKETABLE skills much more. The things you can't really quantify, transfer or develop. The things they don't teach in business school. The things nobody will ever pay you to do, but that you're darn glad you can.

Danelle has a terrific one -- she gets good parking spaces. No matter how crowded the lot, something desirable is conveniently available when she drives by. The skill fades a little when she's a passenger, but doesn't dissipate completely. We've gotten to the point that we just call unexpectedly good parking spots "Danelle spots" and accept that that's what they are.

I've got three that I can think of, one being the ability to order something good in a restaurant I've never been to before. Not just in a self-fulfilling, I-have-to-eat-it-so-I-might-as-well-act-like-I-like-it way. My prowess is generally validated by my dining companions' vocal approval of my selections. Danelle, alas, is not blessed with this gift and generally ends up bemoaning the fact that she didn't order whatever I did. She used to just eat off my plate, but we've matured beyond that. Now she waits for me to offer.

I used to be pretty OCD about ordering in restaurants, to the point of having to order last because I'd get upset if someone else ordered the same item I did. I finally had to get over it after going out to enough meals with my old friend and co-worker Lynn Rosen because she was my polar opposite. She could never decide what to order, and needed to hear what everyone else was having before choosing something. At least our idiosyncracies complemented each other.

Another is that I can tell you the co-stars and usually a few of the supporting cast from a ton of movies I've never seen. It's not something I research or study -- I don't know if I pick it up from commercials or what. And I don't know why it stays in my head when I can't even remember to tell Danelle when her best friend calls. But for whatever reason it does.

"Do you remember French Kiss?"

"Um...Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, right?"

"Right. Did you like it?"

"Dunno. Never saw it."

My final such skill is really more of a blessing -- I can sleep. Anywhere, anytime, I can just sleep. I've slept in moving cars during hurricanes. I sleep regularly on airplanes. I can fall asleep when Danelle has the light, television and her laptop all on in the bedroom at night.

If I'm not asleep within 10 minutes of going to bed, I get frustrated and complain about how much trouble I'm having getting to sleep. This infuriates Danelle (and probably many of you) to no end, since she typically plans on being in bed for well over an hour before drifting off if she's lucky. Frankly, I have no idea how she can function on how little sleep she gets. If I go more than a few nights without my standard seven hours, it's not going to end well.

None of these things will likely come up in my next interview, but I'll probably get more out of that last one in particular over the course of my life than my expertise in "promotion and media placement." No matter what my LinkedIn profile says.