Here are the rest of the Paul Chaney interview questions about what blogging has done for me. Like for the other parts of this interview, we'd like to hear from our readers. How would you answer these questions? Hit the comment link and share.
How have you seen blogging change or evolve since you started?
There are a lot more blogs to read, and fortunately a few really good ones have come onto the scene. In fact there are a couple that I read every day and always learn new things. Along with that, however, are many blogs that are just drivel… too many people see them as web-logs or diaries, and so you have to sort out the good ones from the ones that just meander and bore.
Blog authors are becoming more creative now too, and newer blogging platforms allow more customization and tweaking which is always nice to see. But there are still many that are not optimized for business. Some blogging platforms don’t have a means to leave a trackback, and some authors can’t be bothered with comments. Some otherwise tech-savvy business people forget to put a subscription option on their blog, things like that that means they aren’t taking advantage of the neat social media features that blogs are designed for.
There is a whole new breed of blogs now that are purely business blogs, CEO blogs, entrepreneur blogs. While there haven’t been many surveys done yet on these, (stats for blogs are all lumped together which means that all the personal blogs and family blogs skew the data), it won’t be long now before we can get some info on ROI for these blogs.
What is your best "takeaway" you'd say you've received from your experience?
Besides the opportunity to write and write some more, and publish more than I ever thought I would in the last 2 ½ years, I have to say that the biggest takeaway for me is coming together with Denise Wakeman to form The Blog Squadtm team, a partnership that is working well together. We get to work with some very enlightened and accomplished professionals. And we have traveled to far-away places to meet face to face with blogging peers who feel like family.
Looking to the future, where do you see blogging headed in the next two to five years?
Denise and I spotted the power of blogs for independent professionals almost immediately. We both were amazed after we started blogging for just a few weeks, about what this medium could and should mean for busy professionals (findability, low cost, easy to use, interactive with clients/readers, to name just a few reasons).
And the last 2 ½ years have proven us right: blogging is here to stay, not just a fad. But it is evolving rapidly. There are no rules, but common practices and best practices are becoming defined.
I predict that in the next 2-5 years, we won’t be talking about blogging so much, because it will be the default platform for many professionals. In many cases, blogs will replace websites for businesses. Why bother with a website if your blogging platform can do it all, plus provide a means to communicate with your customers? (Web designers move over, or get a clue.)
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