Its a truism, though not a Truitt-ism, that blogs must tackle niche subjects. they must remain “on topic”. in order to be Long Tail. Anne Truitt Zelenka argues the flipside here and I am definitely with Anne.
“The key to the social web is that you’re not just a consumer or a user or part of the audience. When you blog, you can do it as a three-dimensional human too. You don’t have to turn yourself into an online magazine. If you want to do that and that’s what you’re good at, go for it and prosper! I am thankful for those who do because I don’t want to.
If, on the other hand, you want a way to raise your professional profile while you connect with other people, bring your full self onto your blog when you feel so inspired.”
This debate captures something of the old Romantic vs Classical traditions. A Classical scholar might only read three books-but know them inside out and back to front, sideways and upside down. A Romantic on the other hand is more promiscuous when it comes to knowledge. Another aspect of bursty vs busy?
While I greatly respect specialists, I don’t feel I have to be one. Indeed part of our business model is to learn from specialists and make the lessons they teach general and perhaps more easily digestible. At RedMonk we celebrate cross-cutting concerns. Cote is a really good analyst because he integrates both systems management and application development thinking. He is neither a wave nor a particle.
I must admit I lean toward the notion that people who can think in more than one discipline have some advantages when it comes to innovation, because they can apply lessons from one domain to another. In an age of information abundance and search I see no reason to rake all the leaves into tidy piles. We’re all gardeners.
picture courtesy of thesullys creative commons Attribution license. Thanks sullys!
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