Image by Sailing “Footprints: Real to Reel” (Ronn ashore) via FlickrAs I wade through a bunch of comments on a number of systems, what is coming to mind are some of the most important things I have learned about blogging. While these are in no particular order, this is not a top 10 list; they are all things I have learned because of my five-year experiences with blogging.

1. People are going to hate you – some bloggers seem to live in a love hate relationship with other bloggers sometimes. What is particularly interesting is when blogging becomes a blood sport in terms of comments, post comments, blog entries that seek out to savage each other rather than inform or form a cogent argument on why a particular viewpoint is better than another’s. Sometimes the emotional gut evisceration that some bloggers partake of can get to be a real downer. The good part of this is that you do not have to participate in those kinds of tit for tat arguments on line you can just quietly walk away, and write about something else.

2. We are stronger together rather than apart – this comes from the idea that we have formed a community. If you look at community driven systems we all choose who we want to be friends with. We can choose those people who are fun to be around rather than go digging around in the dirt and hanging out with people we would not associate with in real life. When we build a community, we build a social voice, we can effect change for the better, or we can simply do nothing and let things slide on by and not use our collective voice to address any social, political, or personal issue.

3. There are people out there who will support you – much of what I write has a relationship to what other people write about on their blogs. Sometimes I get an original idea, but more often than not, someone else’s article will inspire something on my part. Sometimes what I write inspires someone else to write something even better. We stand on the shoulders of each other, learning, and doing good things. The people who do this kind of building out the dialog are worthy of knowing. I have met many of you, and that is part of the wonderfulness of the blogosphere.

4. A blog is both tool and weapon – depending on what you use your blog for; it is either a tool to help or a weapon to hinder. At times, it is hard to tell the difference between the two. The person running the blog is coming at something from their viewpoint which may or may not contain facts, most of us are going to be looking for facts when we stop by the blog. Or we may be looking for informed opinion, we probably are not looking for an ill formed argument based on emotion. Bloggers are becoming more aware of the need for fact checking, something that journalism teaches. However, like most human controlled systems, sometimes we cannot pass up on something that will drive traffic and cause sensationalism, not worrying about the eventual personal outcome of that article. We have seen this in the past, and no doubt, that it will continue into the future. We need more tool using, more fact checking, and move past the weaponization of the blog. Sensationalism only draws traffic for a small amount of time; good factual articles live for the long tail.

5. We all struggle – all bloggers at some point want to be heard, even if it is by a small audience. We try to build out an audience, and sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Sometimes that failure is not pretty, yet the blogger learns and moves on, learning from the failure. It is when we link love, it is when we listen, it is when we debate that we start building out our voices, and we start building out audience share.

6. You have to build out a thick skin – when you blog you are exposing yourself to the world. People from all over the world are going to come read your blog, and some of them will never come back. Some will make it their personal mission in life to try to change your mind, or try to shut you down. If you are a person that lives on the internet as a public person, anyone can and will say anything about you. Some of it you might like because it reaffirms your ego, some of it you might not like because it hurts or causes people to doubt you. That is ok, but you cannot let it drive you into a downward depressive cycle. Many bloggers I have known have been torn apart on the internet, and rather than dusting themselves off have stopped blogging, stopped being public people. We lose a voice, we lose an opinion, and the abusive person just moves on to find someone else to hate. You need to work these kinds of issues out internally. The idea to remember here on this one is that in politics, senior business management, blogging, and even writing, someone else is always going to armchair quarterback your decisions.

7. Blogging can be very rewarding – blogging and writing can be some of the most personally rewarding things you can do for yourself and for others. If you walk away from an article thinking you did well here, then you most likely did do well. Remember those moments; they are what blogging should be all about.

These are probably the most important things I have learned, and that makes a difference in why I blog, and what I blog about. While we all have a voice, and we all have an opinion, overall my experience with the blogosphere has been a rewarding and positive experience. I have met and continue to meet some of the most interesting people I could have hoped to meet. I have also met some dirt balls along the way, but that is ok too. The important part to remember is that the blogosphere is a macrocosm of everyone on the planet, some opinionated, others not so opinionated. The key to blogging is to understand that you are a public person, and in a global internet environment, not everyone is going to agree with you.

Tags: blogging, lessons, learned, people, global, voice, village, support, fun