WFCW: Talkin' blogging

I get a lot of questions about... well, blogging. The biggest question is: Do people actually read it? (Short answer: Who knows, but they seem to.)

We actually did FCW's Trends in Government Technology radio show on Tuesday about blogging. You can hear the show for yourself here.

The program featured David Wyld, the director of the strategic e-commerce/e-government initiative at Southeastern Louisiana University's Department of Management and the author of the IBM Center for The Business of Government's new report, "The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0". [Read the full report here in PDF form.]

We also had Geoff Livingston of Livingston Communications, author of the Buzz Bin blog, and the author of the upcoming book, "Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs."

I mentioned on the show -- perhaps too many times -- that blogging takes time. I only say that because there is a remarkable percentage of blogs that...well, disappear because people don't update them regularly so people don't visit them so they just fade away.

Here is a bit from USA.gov's very helpful advice to bloggers:

Writing blogs can be time-consuming and can take time to succeed. Building credibility and trust takes time. So don't expect that, if and when you launch a blog, that it will be an overnight success. Blogging is a form of publishing and most publications that do succeed generally take a long time to build up a sustainable readership. You must be willing to put in quality blogging time week in, week out. A good idea might take up one paragraph, but could have taken a day or more to research and think through.

10 Tips for Blogging by Public-Sector Executives
Tip 1: Define yourself and your purpose.
Tip 2: Do it yourself!
Tip 3: Make a time commitment.
Tip 4: Be regular.
Tip 5: Be generous.
Tip 6: Have a "hard hide."
Tip 7: Spell-check.
Tip 8: Don't give too much information.
Tip 9: Consider multimedia.
Tip 10: Be a student of blogging.