In discussion the other day we were considering the value of blogs. My companion rated them rather low since it was impossible, he said, to know the credibility of the writer whose opinions were being presented. A natural contrarian, I queried whether opinion, as distinct from fact, really needed to be backed by credibility. Surely, I said, the value of an opinion was to be found in the ideas it generated in the mind of the reader, so that, in a sense, the credibility of the writer was irrelevant. Even an opinion you reject can spark ideas when you consider why you have rejected it. Of course, if the idea was to adopt the opinions of the writer as your own, knowing the writer’s credibility would indeed be important.
Then again, what constitutes credibility? Academic position? Prominent position? Years of Experience? High IQ? When they started, our leading entrepreneurs today had none of these. But their ideas worked!
Then over the weekend I was listening to Dan Sullivan’s “Pure Genius” and he had something to say on this subject. He spoke of people as being “A” people – those who did not have opinions of their own but read widely and carefully and adopted the opinions of others. “B” people as those who did have their own opinions but did not take responsibility for them and blamed the world for not being what they thought it should be, “C” people, he said, were those who did take responsibility for their opinions and used them to create value and make money for themselves – entrepreneurs. “D” people were those rare people who not only took responsibility for their opinions in order to make money for themselves but also sought to share their knowledge with others.
To my mind a blog is useful in that, in today’s busy world, it presents ideas in small ‘bite-sized’ pieces for further reflection; enables easy feedback (in a way that, e.g., reading a book, doesn’t); can encourage collaborative conversation; it can build up a complex idea in small easy steps with time between posts to provide scope for reflection.
The credibility of a blog today is governed by popularity and volume, much like magazines and newspapers. The author may not require any level of technical skill or experience in the subject they write about if they are clever about how the blog is promoted. More readers (subscribers) are gained if the blogs are interesting and topical, and i suggest also easy to read, where little brain power is needed to process the material. This means that the truly valuable blogs that generate deep thinking and new ideas, will struggle in the popularity contest. Irrespective, if a reader enjoys a blog they will keep reading and this will encourage the writer to keep writing.