I want everyone to blog. More importantly I want people who could be considered as "the crazy ones" to blog.
I have found myself recently trying to explain what blogging is and have come to realise it is a hopelessly silly task. "Online journal" makes most people scrunch up their nose, while "connected intelligence" makes them scratch their heads. Besides, the Content Management Systems which make blogging possible are versatile enough already that a weblog is whatever you want it to be. Or rather, whatever you want to put in it.
So yeah, I want some folks with really important things to say to blog as well. I am not say there aren't any, nor am I saying the "A-list" bloggers and current super stars of blogging aren't saying anything interesting (to the contrary). I am saying we need more. Much more.
Ok we now have two U.S. presidential candidates sort of blogging. Big deal. While a good thing in itself, I can't help but smell hidden agendas and "riding the trend" mind-sets.
No, I want the real deal.
I want , for example, Michael Moore to blog. I want Noam Chomsky to blog. David Suzuki should blog. I want every truly outspoken, vocal and already known "crazy person" to blog.
Why you may ask? These people already publish, appear on TV, make movies, etc. Why blog?
For example, again, let's take folks like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. Reading Chomsky or Moore, you get what they are trying to put across (as best you can). They package it up into a nice text and present it to you. Fantastic. Great stuff. Whether you agree with them or not, it is truly a wonder of the 15th century that we can disseminate information like this. ;)
If Chomsky and Moore where active bloggers, we could share in their insights in real time. They could share glimpses of the tons of research they do everyday, filtered through their inimitable styles. Would this hurt book sales? Surely not as we'd all get addicted to their byte-sized blog doses. Many of us would run out and buy copies just to see how they stitch it all together, again in their inimitable styles.
(There are of course issues with this. Comments and Trackbacks would more than likely be turned off due to the unfortunate reality of hate mail, etc. People in the public eye sadly must buffer themselves sometimes.)
A great example is Lawrence Lessig (Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, Founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, Author of The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Chair of the Creative Commons project...). An active blogger, his personal coverage of his struggle against such things as Copyright misuse, media conglomeration, etc, has galvanized a huge group of people who'd otherwise never have heard of the issues (as Chomsky would say "thinking they must be alone in thinking something is wrong and thus not acting), into a dedicated and active community, pushing for change.
Are you listening Mr. Chomsky? Your books are great; your tireless lecturing, very important. There are, thankfully, archives on the web of many of your texts and transcripts. But these are all little bits, floating about, separate and labor intensive to acquire and assimilate.
Mr. Moore? Your website is a great resource, and your "Mike's words" is very good - not to mention your films, etc. But it's not enough. They are dispatches, newsletters... the same slow motion dissemination of important information we've had for a long time. We now have much better, faster communication technologies. Use them to your benefit, for our benefit.
That said, I am here. I have the knowledge, the resources and the desire to help set them up.
There are others I'll get to as well.
