I'm completing my first school year as a blogging Principal and plan to continue the effort throughout the summer and next school year as well. Those who have read this blog for awhile know that the intent is to provide information about what's going on at school with a bit of personal information about what goes on in my life. I suppose the personal/reflective bit comes from the fact that in my schooling experience my principals were always distant figures. They were likely all very good people who made good decisions for kids, but getting a grasp on the "human" side of the principal's position was not always easy.
In this year of blogging, I've learned a lot about communicating with people in a new format. Some people love this stuff and others can live without it...but in the long run it is worth having an additional communication outlet for our community. Even those who choose to comment aggressively and negatively on a blog are getting the opportunity to be heard and giving their neighbors and the online community the opportunity to form their own opinions about the issues of the day.
What interests me is the growth of the blogging world and the likely continued growth that we will see as more individuals initiate on weblogs as a communication tool. I heard today that a new blog is started every 0.1 seconds each day. Seriously. An act (writing a post on a blog) that takes the amount of time and is as simple as sending an email has the ability to reach numerous people in different parts of this world quickly and easily - which is amazing.
LeaderTalk - a group blog for educators that I write for once a month - is in the process of being added to Education Week's bloglist. EdWeek is a huge periodical in the edu-world that scores hundreds of thousands of readers per day. LeaderTalk began this transition to "big-ness" (sorry, best word I could come up with there) after only seven weeks of existence. What does that say about people's interest in blogs and desire to find shared knowledge and the ability of the medium to grow and spread quickly?
Some quick Google research revealed that some of corporate America's more influential and successful leaders are utilizing blogs as a tool to share information about their organizations and themselves. For example:
Jonathan Schwartz - President & CEO of Sun Microsystems
Craig Newmark - CEO of Craigslist
Mark Cuban - Owner & CEO of the Dallas Mavericks (NBA)
Guy Kawasaki - CEO of Garage Technology Ventures
...these leaders utilize blogs regularly as a communication tool. Pastors, elected leaders, professors, professional athletes, students, artists, teachers, and principals are using this tool as a means to communicate with those in their direct and indirect circle of influence.
So, what do you think? Is everyone wasting their time? Has the world changed the way it seeks and provides news and information? I welcome your feedback.
DY
Dave,
As you have probably figured out, I love blogging as a principal. I do not think it is a fad. Instead, I think blogging will eventually take the place of the old-fashioned newsletter from the principal. I am working hard to get our parents to visit my blog for school related information and educational topics. This has been a slow process, but I am not giving up. I do have a small of core parent readers, but I have not yet been able to convince them to post a comment.
I look forward to the quiet times in the week when I can sit down and compose a new blog post. I always feel good afterward. I plan on keeping blogging as part of my professional life.
- Dave
Posted by: Dave Sherman | June 06, 2007 at 11:32 PM
As a retired administrator of some 4 years I have time to surf the blogs (too much time). Political blogs get most of my time. The most popular blogs on the Net get a few thousand hits per day. The blogs with the highest traffic of all may get a couple hundred comments posted. The point is - so much time is wasted producing "information" that very few people ever see...or care about. A principal's "blog-time" would be so much better spent with teachers and students...or better yet...with family.
Don't get caught up in the small stuff.
PS: Mark Cuban is hardly an example to follow...in blogging or fashion (leave the jerseys for the ballpark)
Posted by: Roger C. | June 09, 2007 at 07:27 AM
We could all learn a lot from internet experts like Roger C. I'm sure he's fully aware that the average blog post takes all of 5-10 minutes. I can't wait to retire so I can cruise around online all day to post random judgments on people I don't know.
Posted by: Lorenzo | June 11, 2007 at 08:45 PM
Principal Younce, a great post! Multiple streams of information (blogs, newsletters, nose to nose time, etc) are always helpful. Of course, we are living in an time when more people my age (early thirties) get their news online and from blogs than the "big 3" networks combined...
I would be curious to know if anyone who is critical of blogging is also critical of journaling??? Keeping a diary or journal, long heralded as a traditional form of reflection and respected by academics, CEOs, and presidents alike, is sometimes criticized when moved from the leather bound journal to a different media. I wonder if Gutenberg heard the same type of arguments?
Posted by: Chris | June 12, 2007 at 12:29 PM
web log figures:
- approximately 1 in 4 web log visitors leaves a comment (10 comments = 10-40 visitors)
- nearly half of all comments are posted, overly or covertly, by the blog's author
- the majority of corporate blogs are written by PR people, not senior management
- blogs not updated every 48-72 hours lose 80% of repeat traffic. Blog often to keep eyes on your words
- the average blogger spends 5 times as much time reading and responding to blogs as they do writing them
- controversy breeds new readers
- active bloggers spend 1-2 hours daily writing, maintaining, and responding to posts
Posted by: ashton | June 24, 2007 at 12:47 PM
Nearly 84.7% of all web log figures are pulled from one's rear end.
Posted by: Lorenzo | June 25, 2007 at 09:50 AM
Thoughtful reply, lorenzo
Source you may find helpful regarding web logs – "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" author William Richardson.
ISBN 1-4129-2767-6
Posted by: ashton | June 25, 2007 at 11:45 AM
You're pulling your "web research" from a printed book? My apologies, I need to get back to learning Latin via telegraph.
Posted by: Lorenzo | June 25, 2007 at 01:55 PM