My experience about blogging

A couple of weeks ago I created my first blog and started to write posts, mainly about the topic Enterprise 2.0 and related issues. After the first doubts of what to write and how to write it I looked for other interesting information online available (such as other blogs), shared these information on my own blog and provided my own thoughts.

Our lecturer Jason helped us to start blogging by giving us online sources and best practice examples of companies using Enterprise 2.0 principles. Further instructions we got of well structured practicals where we were required to write about special topics.

Unfortunately I started the unit Enterprise 2.0 two weeks after the beginning, so I missed the initial instructions and had to do more workshop tasks at the same time. Furthermore as an international studend I discovered that some Web 2.0 tools are different to European tools. I used to be active on some European tools such as Xing (a platform with the same business idea as linkedIn), so I created new accounts on LinkedIn and try now to build up a new network with the Enterprise 2.0 community.
Our lecturer Jason instructed us to create a Twitter account as well. I created one and had a look if some of my old colleagues in Europe are using Twitter but I couldn’t find any. I was not sure how to follow the Enterprise 2.0 community on Twitter so I decided to create a Google Reader account as it provides great possibilities to read all new blog posts of my university colleagues as well as it allows me to comment new posts. So I am wondering about the big deal of Twitter but I would like to discuss this in another post.

My first experiences in blogging are that it is a lot of work as some preparations are necessary and some research has to be done before the actual writing can start. During the writing I tried to link to all information I found to give evidence to my thoughts and to share information as one of the main goals of blogging is to share knowledge (especially for Enterprises 2.0). Our lecturer told us to spend more than ten hours weekly with our blog and I am quite sure that this time is necessary to build up a good blog and network with interesting input.
To tell the truth, in the beginning of blogging I invested less time as the preparations of the other units at university takes a lot of time, too. But I realised that spending more time with my blog improves the quality and I have more fun in writing posts and sharing information.

I would like to assess the intermediate result of my blog and my online network. After initial difficulties as described above I am trying to provide regular posts and I progress well. Before I started blogging Web 2.0 was for me a strange word and I really did not know what exactly it means. Now I learned a lot about these tools and I am using them regularly.

According to the first task of our current practical I would like to discuss the following points more in depth:

1. Practical ability to leverage off web 2.0 technologies to enhance personal branding: For a good personal branding networking is the most important point. So I created a www.google.com/reader account to follow the blogs of the Enterprise 2.0 community. So I can see which blogs have been updated recently and then I can leave comments there. Leaving comments in other blogs is the best way to receive comments as other bloggers are aware of your blog. Due to this proceeding I was able to receive some comments, too.

2. Manner and consistency of participation in weekly workshops activities and contribution: I have published blogs to all workshop topics since I started with this unit. In addition I commented the blogs of other students and sent trackbacks to other blogs when meaningful. I used other blogs and online sources to give evidence of my posts.

3. Ability to appraise Web 2.0 strategies and solutions for organisational and personal success: I could make a good progress in this point and I have already recommended the company where I used to work many imprvement ideas. I am lookig forward to assessment item 2 where we can write a business improvement proposal and I hope to find a group with a real Australian company to work for.

4. Ability to engage successfully with the wider community (including people outside of QUT) using Web 2.0 tools and techniques: This is one of the most difficult point but I sentsome trackback to the wider community and my blog was linked from outside.

In my next post I am going to write about how to fulfill assessment item 2. If you have any recommendations mainly about how to improve networking, please feel free to write comments or send me a trackback.

Advertisement