Blogging: Hope for Global Unity?

There are several main points and concepts that stuck out to me while reading the interview with Trine-Maria Kristensen. The first is that blogging has become a business for Kristensen. She decided to found and manage a business called Social Square that helps organizations and businesses understand social media and how to access its many uses. During that time, her blog has been an outlet for her personal ideas that don’t have as much room to blossom at her work-place. From this personal insight displayed to the public, her website has become a valuable resource for many researchers and businesses looking for help in accessing the social media. She states that communication professionals from different companies find my blog and contact me in order to find out more about corporate blogging…and some of them end up as our clients in Social Square. Other ways that her blog has led to business adventures and a steady income include speaking gigs at conferences, seminars, universities and tech schools. Kristensen has become a well-known figure because of her expertise cleverly displayed via the blogging medium. She recently published a new book entitled Weblog as a result of this expertise and public attention. 

The other thing that stuck out to me while reading this blog was an overwhelming sense of humanistic idealism. When asked if Kristensen ever worries about abusive emails or comments. Her response really surprised me. In all the years she has written and been a public figure, she has never once received an abusive email or comment. This floored me. I think there is a fear from inexperienced bloggers that there are maliciously inclined viewers out there waiting to pounce on unsuspecting bloggers and tear them apart. Kristensen proves this fear to be unneeded. I found this reassuring. But another quote in the text made me think of this point from different angle. The quote stated that no one is going to accidentally stumble upon your site. They are only going to visit if they are interested in what you have to read. I concluded from this reality that most humans do not have the time to surf around blogs to leave malicious comments.

The other example of idealism I saw within the interview was when Kristensen was asked how blogging has changed her life. She responded:  I often say that the more I blog the more naive I become. I truly believe that people can and will work together to change the world (or at least change organizations), and that we will come up with even better solutions when we work together. I thought this was beautiful and very true. Blogging has created an online global community founded on conversation and knowledge acquisition. What greater medium for global discussion, compromise and consensus could exist? I thought this what an exciting thing to think about.