On Personal vs. Professional Blogging and Twittering

I came across an interesting reaction to blogging by Lars Trieloff, Day’s product manager for DAM and SoCo, and couldn’t help but think (out loud) and document my stream of consciousness (also known as blogging)  😉

After all, he mentioned my name a few times, and I parse that as an invitation to engage in a dialogue. Something is telling me I’ve (unintentionally) crushed one of the processes running on Trieloff’s processor(s).

Prologue, or How It All Started

Earlier this week, Day Software released CQ 5.2 with new DAM and SoCo features. One of the statements that caught my attention during a briefing I had with Day was Trieloff’s “personal blogging is dead.”

So, I kindly disagreed with that statement in my CQ 5.2 coverage for CMSWire.com. On my own blog, I also posted a different (and much truncated) version of Day’s announcement.

The posts go live, and then something unimaginable (to Trieloff) happens. My own blog generated a larger response wave than my post on CMSWire. Granted, it was due to one mighty curious reader (and many, many more observers) who was probably just bored at a corporate meeting.

A comment/question was posted, and (being the Twitter user I am) I chose to use Twitter as a faster vehicle to get the questions answered (I do care about my readers — all 1.5 of them). And it worked like magic.

Although I could’ve addressed the questions myself without “desperately looking for outside inspiration, for ‘brains’,” I chose to ping @daysoftware and offer ya’ll to chime in. And so Day — represented by @trieloff and @kevinc2003 — did. Everyone wins, no?

No, the next thing I hear is that personal blogging is in fact in a transitional Zombie state, but (most likely) is dead. One would imagine that after spending 1.5 years of one’s life on a product release that is generating some buzz that specific *one* would be jumping from joy? Or is this just a way of rationalizing and dealing with a blown circuit?

Dialogue: Personal or Professional?

Is personal blogging really a Zombie, as Trieloff (quite vividly so) illustrates with pictures? BTW, that’s some *bad* hair day (pun intended).

Depends on how you define personal blogging and/or Twittering and where you draw the line.

If I am speaking from my personal (and not a corporate or a news organization’s) point of view on professional topics, is this personal or professional blogging?

If I am talking about CMS and post it on CMSWire it is professional, but if I ponder CMS topics on my own blog it is less professional? If I am using WP and not CQ5 to blog, does that mean I have a very unprofessional aka personal blog?

If I were to blog/Twitter (personally) about the daily grind and nothing beyond that — a pair of stilettos I just bought, the great risotto I had for dinner, the color of underwear I am (not) wearing, sales at Target, the French manicure I just got done or the hot date I went on the other night — I doubt that this type of information would generate the same amount of attention as my CQ5 SoCo post.

That type of information above is not really useful to anyone but the sex offenders on my block, weirdos lurking on the Internet and the coupon-collecting soccer moms. None of whom I would consider to be my primary audience (if I even have one).

Professional blogging, on the other hand, is based on the notion of relevance and usefulness. The same idea, I think, applies to professional Twittering (with slightly laxer constraints). Content is still king, but a 140 characters of it may not necessarily encompass everything I am “dying” to share with my professional network. And that’s when folks blog — from a personal or organizational standpoint.

Epilogue (of Sorts)

As far as Twitter goes and “the ‘brains’ that undead personal blogs are looking for can be found at Twitter.” It would be nice if Twitter was the answer to all questions. But Twitter is merely one of the tools out there and is hardly the Holy Grail solution for “fueling discussions and driving blog traffic.” The funny thing is that this whole exchange of comments about Day’s SoCo didn’t even start on Twitter.

CMS Vendor meme did receive a lot of Twitter action — *after* it was posted on the CMS Watch blog and, subsequently, on Day’s blog. Cannot imagine we would’ve had that many delicious dialogues, if Twitter was the only tool at hand.

No content – no traffic, regardless of which blogging platform or microsharing app you’re using.

What I find contradictory is the fact that those chastising “personal” blogging resort to posting on posterous.com instead of sticking to “corporate” blogging on, say, dev.day.com? “Personal” blogging ain’t dead after all, eh?

Coincidentally, I am not the only one challenging Trieloff’s verdict. Others have disagreed with Lars as well (on a different occasion, though). That was when personal blogging was announced obsolete. I don’t think that the ultimate goal of blogging is to make it the Technorati 100 blog list.

Twitter, or any other microsharing app may, of course, be faster and “more connected” — by its nature. However, it is not a substitute for blogging.

Microblogging and blogging in my mind are as different as Kindle 2 and holding an old book with that library smell to it in my hands. Somehow, seems to ooze more substance albeit less convenient.

P.S.: I am gonna categorize this post as “personal.” Just because 😛

Oh, and I do love gadgets, and it’s been ages since I held a Rarität circa 17th century in my hands.