Blogging makes you smarter!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert in all things social net­work­ing. As late as a year ago I couldn’t tell you what a blog was and why I needed yet another set of things to read each day. To me, email was hard enough. But I am fas­ci­nated by the com­mu­nity that grows from it. So, after some intense dis­cus­sion, the Mar­ble­head team decided to start our own blog and live the expe­ri­ence rather than watch it happen around us. That was 4 weeks ago today.

While think­ing about this, just sit­ting here, eating my muffin, drink­ing my coffee, I had what alco­holics refer to as a moment of clar­ity. (catch that?). Start­ing a blog is like join­ing a gym. You have to GO THERE and USE IT for it to have any actual, real life effect (see what bril­liance blog­ging has taught me!). While I haven’t yet found extra hours at the end of the day to read my RSS feeds or start on my blog idea list, the moments I have carved out gave me that same just-​left-​the-​gym feel­ing. You feel like you gave some­thing and at the same time feel stronger and better pre­pared to give even more next time.

While I still have much to learn about social net­work­ing, start­ing a blog has taught me it’s not about get­ting the blog launched, writ­ing that first post, or dis­cov­er­ing the magic key to instant fame. It’s that com­mu­nity hap­pens through par­tic­i­pa­tion. I’ve already met some fan­tas­ti­cally cool people, sharp­ened the strat­egy of grow­ing this blog, and instantly share when people say things like this. So, tomor­row I set my alarm clock, put the run­ning shoes by the bed, and block time to jump into a com­mu­nity that finds amaz­ing ways to con­nect with each other daily. It’s been a great month.