Blogging: learning points after 4 months

Blogging as informal learning by accessing someone’s personal documentation. There was no other reason than that I thought I should try to practice this medium. Others had told me a week earlier it was the thing to do. I just jumped into it. This is now 16 weeks or 56 postings ago. Technology is so easy that even I can handle the basics. And as rationale I thought it would support marketing the cepa toolkit and it might become a community of practice.

These are still the organizing principles for the blog. But learning by doing showed me blogging is foremost a new channel for documentation of ideas, learning points and notes. Easier than in a notebook, you can find your entries back. The form forces you to be precise and concise. No half sentences, no unreadable scribbles. Pictures and visuals are better than ballpoint sketches. Then there are the links to sources on the web, you may need again later on.

I know others have access, can read and comment on the postings and I love my readers, but increasingly I became less conscious of them. I realized blogging is making your own learning accessible for informal learning by others without (much) interaction. Except for the 1-2% of readers who post a comment, the only traces they leave are in the web statistics google provides.

I saw an increase of readers at the time of WEEC. I saw the archives are accessed regularly. And it is interesting to see which words of search engines score most (e.g. poverty, communication residue, deep listening). In July I interviewed ten people I knew were readers. Their main feedback was to make the postings shorter. This all fits with the concept of accessing someone’s documentation. I am curious how I will see blogging after another 50 or more postings. Who wants to accelerate my learning?