Hans Henrik raises an interesting question: How much do you need to know about a blogger to actually feel you know him or her …
He uses me as an example, which certainly made me think about it… “Who are you as a person – wanna share?” he asks.
My short answer is “No”.
My long(er) answer is this:
As Hans Henrik says, I try to keep this site focused on blogging and related communication discussions. I’m not doing it primarily to be read, even if that’s fun and stimulating. I’m doing it to learn. I work that way. If I read stuff I forget it. If I read stuff and write about it, I’m able to transform it from information to knowledge. And with a journalistic background no other writing than that in public really counts.
Writing more about my background, my family, views and opinions on other matters — that wouldn’t fill any purpose from that perspective. In my corporate blog (Swedish only) it’s somewhat different, because there I have other purposes.
That’s one part of the answer, the individual part of it. In more general terms I think – as a blog reader – that it’s not very interesting to get too much personal stuff. If I read a blog to, say, find news and discussions about eeb design I couldn’t care less who the blogger had dinner with the night before. I don’t want to know that.
We can have voices or personalities without being personal/almost private in what we write.
On a very general level I think we can see cultural differences here. I haven’t studied it comprehensively, but aren’t Americans more personal in their business blogs than for example Europeans or Australians?
Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info blog which is a guide to business and corporate blogging.
Visit Fredrik Wacka’s blog: CorporateBlogging.Info.
