This interview is part of the study of blogger networking practices: links to other interviews and some background, links to the results.

***

Dave is a founder and a Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge, a consulting company focusing on complexity, sense-making, narratives that runs certification program for use of its methods and also sells software. He was formerly a director of IBM Institute of Knowledge Management and founder of the Cynefin Centre for organisational complexity. He was well-known in the KM world prior to blogging.

He started a weblog which is part of the company’s website in 2006 when starting to build his own business after leaving IBM, then it “made sense in terms of getting publicity”. He says that while blogging is successful in terms of marketing, he enjoys it for getting in touch “with lots of unexpected people”.

I asked what changed with blogging since he was well-known in the KM world prior to it (e.g. giving keynotes at conferences). “A keynote is a performance. [...] a blog is more intimate”. Dave tells about being surprised with “the degree you reveal yourself on the weblog”, sharing “half-formed ideas” and starting to “chat with people as they were good friends”.

Dave admits being known when starting blogging was an advantage since many people linked straight away. He already knew some of the bloggers (some of them encouraged him to start), but he also connected with others, for example “science bloggers”. He has “about fifty science bloggers” in his reader – “they scan journals for me, so I don’t have myself”, “I’ve learnt to trust them over the years”, “it’s much better than summarisation surface”. Dave says that some of weblogs he reads “just to keep an eye on things”, without engaging at more personal level. Later he also tells about reading weblogs in parallel to other things. He doesn’t read everything and sometimes just deletes all unread items or skims through the headlines.

He describes finding other blogs by following comments and links. “The people who link to you are interesting, because they found your ideas interesting, they comment”. He engages with those that are interesting – “it’s what they say, doesn’t matter what level they are”. “People link to your weblog and you follow it through and you put comments on it. [...] It’s just a normal courtesy of a conversation.”

When we discuss how blogging breaks hierarchical boundaries he suggests that with a weblog “you can’t live of your reputation, you live of what you say”. He also suggests that “good bloggers are eclectics, they do different things, they surprise you [...] that is what keeps you going back”.

“If you read somebody’s paper you get to know their ideas, if you read their weblog, you get to know them as a person”. Dave talks about blogging as “fragmented frequent conversation” and draws parallels between blogging and the way human brains work. “We don’t tell stories to each other, we swap anecdotes and blogs are very similar to that”. He compares knowing others through blogging to knowing people “in a common room in a university”. I ask how it is similar to the “familiar stranger” concept. He says that “in a blog you know a lot how people think”, compared to just knowing how they look like.

He is not sure meeting in person is good or bad after getting to know each other online, as some people “create a different persona in their blog” and meeting in person might results in “identity structure shifts”. When I refer to other bloggers who are eager to meet in person, he tells it depends on a scale: “I can’t afford the time to meet everybody I track or listen to”.

We also talk about the participatory culture of blogging. “The secret is not to push your ideas, if you say interesting things or link to interesting stuff people will come and talk to you anyway”. He talks about “buying” from people who “contribute”, not those who “sell”. “Blogging creates a sort of ‘ethereal brand’, not the brand of an individual, but the brand of the network which people are part of”, “that gives you a sense of identity in the networks you belong to”.

“We see a lot of people who join the network or come to courses because of the weblog”. “Take any commercial benefit as a plus point, but don’t look for it”. “I’ve certainly used weblogs of some people to decide not to collaborate with them”.

Weblogs in relation to other tools

“Weblogs help to get to know people’s ideas”, to establish new relationships and to create trust. “Blogs remain the best way of keeping in touch with multiple people in different fields”. He says that he prefers to reply to others on weblog, not on Twitter, “which is for more casual stuff”. Weblog provides “the record” and the context; he often returns to old weblog posts and couldn’t imagine the same with Twitter.

• Brett Miller
• Shawn Callahan
• Blog networking study: getting to know others from a distance

This interview is part of the study of blogger networking practices: links to other interviews and some background, links to the results.

***

Brett lives in the USA and works as a system engineer. He talks about working in an “old school high-tech industry”, where not many people know “what the weblog actually is, what people use blogs for”.

He started blogging on KM topics in 2002 when working in KM and studying it for his Masters. Later he started two other weblogs, on autism and trampoline and tumbling, to share information on those topics with other parents. [After the interview Brett joined his KM and autism blogs into one - Theoria cum Praxi.]

Brett says that blogging extended his views on KM: “the biggest thing was the realisation that there are different solutions for different aspects of KM problems”. “When I first started I was a beginner and reading different blogs gave me different approaches.”

Prior to blogging he knew several KM people, but mainly locally. As a result of blogging, he says, “I know more people in different areas of KM when I knew before.” Blogging helped him to reach people he wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise (he gives an example of Dave Snowden, with whom he engaged in multiple exchanges via weblogs).

He compares blogging to conversations at a water cooler, saying that it’s a way to “meet people to see if it’s someone you want to get to know better”. “[Blogging] does help to get to know them a little bit, their background, and some people obviously write more personally than others do.” He tells that relations established are similar to those with the acquaintances; it is “mostly a professional relationship that doesn’t go beyond exchanging of ideas on knowledge management.”

For Brett contacting other bloggers is easy “even we don’t really know each other: “Even if I don’t know someone just the fact that I saw something on their blog, posted a comment, asked a question and they see that I have one. It establishes almost an instant credibility: that this person is worth the time to respond, to read, as to say.”

“If I see something that’s interesting I don’t hesitate to comment. [...] It’s an interesting way to have conversations that you don’t otherwise have. But I don’t consider that a sort of connection if I leave a comment on someone’s blog once and never have another conversation with that person.”

“I’ve had people I’ve left comments on their blog and by doing that they discover mine and they initiated contact with me. [...] they commented on the weblog and followed it more closely [...] I guess [they were] more involved, did more steps for a relation than I did. I just commented once and they came to my site and commented frequently. To some extend it makes you feel an obligation almost to go back to theirs to read it more, to comment more. It’s an interesting dynamics, I haven’t thought about it. I feel that I should look at their stuff more closely to see if I want to reciprocate.”

He does not read everything in weblogs he subscribes to: “A couple of years ago someone wrote ‘don’t be mad at me if I don’t read everything that you write in your weblog’. I read what I can, but I don’t feel bad if I don’t read everything.” However, he often comes back to his own posts “to see what I wrote 5 years ago”.

He reads weblogs “to keep up with what people are saying”, but does not maintain contacts through the weblog. “If I contact people it’s through email, Facebook or instant messaging. [...] If they say something on their weblog and I think it’s interesting I’ll respond there not in a separate email, but if it’s something new and especially if it’s one-to-one thing I’ll email”.

Brett estimates connecting with 100-150 people as a result blogging, noting that they are those with whom he had “a relatively extended interaction, not exchanging just a couple of comments”. “I think that I probably contacted with more people through the autism blog (than KM people) mainly because it’s a smaller area or when I started it were not many people blogging on that. [...] [I am] more passionate about those other topics, KM for me is a kind of personal development thing it’s only mainly affects me. The other things that I write really affect more people than just me, I write it as much for other people as for myself.”

For Brett meeting people through blogging is “more of a side effect”: “I started to get information out there that I though was useful to me and someone else may be interested, so it’s kind of side effect that I met people I wouldn’t meet otherwise.”

“I don’t really use blogs as a networking tool, but it has been useful to me that way. I didn’t set out to do that, but those things happen with this medium”. We also discuss his experience with starting a weblog on trampoline and tumbling to share information and to connect with other parents. He realises that it might be his experience with KM blogging: “I’m not in KM anymore, I use those things in practice [...] but I have taken those lessons [from KM weblog] and applied to those other two blogs”.

• Blog networking study: getting to know others from a distance
• Blog networking study: establishing and maintaining relations via blogging
• Blog networking study: participants and their networks