robwebb2k

I started this blog for several reasons, the primary of which was to have an outlet for my thoughts. Ben Casnocha had a good post a while back on the benefits of blogging, the focus & research it demands, and the benefit of forcing intellectual engagement. I agree with all of Ben’s points, but I think he misses an obvious one that is clearly part of my motivation and I am willing to bet is a backdrop to Ben’s voluminous posting as well.

It sounds silly and stale, but blogging gives you an “online identity”…not in the sense of a Second Life identity (e.g.: you can be a furry ninja bear-man) but in the way that a web designer’s online portfolio creates an identity that is accessible and available when someone wants to research their work. For those that don’t have concrete evidence of their work product on the web like designers and developers, blogging is like creating a portfolio for your thinking and thought processes. Doing diligence on someone that has a blog is really, really easy. It gives you access to their thoughts over a long span of time, lets you analyze their writing style and thought processes, and shows what they spend most of their time thinking about. The more you blog, the bigger your online record gets, which in turn makes it easier for people to learn about what makes you tick.

Also, the more your blog and the more people read your site, the easier it is for people to find you in the first place. For example, I can see in my site stats from yesterday that six people found my blog by searching on variations of rob, webb, blog, and university of chicago in Google. Before I started blogging, if you Googled my name you would get lots of stuff about the British actor Robert Webb (who, pictured, was the host of Numberwang and Peep Show) and some Rhodesian guy’s homepage. Thanks to this blog, I’m at the top of the results for “rob webb blog” and about to crack the first page for “rob webb.” Thus, in the future when potential employers, coworkers, employees, and investors want to learn about me, it’ll be easy for them to find this blog and sneak a peak into my head.

So, as long as I hold back on posting my thoughts on Iraq, gay marriage, abortion, politics, gun control, school testing, smoking bans, trans fats, Scooter Libby, global warming, religion in schools, and anything else that isolates and polarizes, I’ll be in the clear…