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Are You Walking The Blogging Walk?

Are You Walking The Blogging Walk?

I hate quoting the entire entry of a blog post, but there is no way to excerpt the succinct, beautiful and powerful observation Matt Mullenweg posted on his blog recently:

One thing I’ve found in the past year is there is sometimes a huge disconnect between people who make noise on blogs, or might have impressive blogs themselves, and productivity in the real world. It’s unfortunate, because it makes it that much harder to find good folks.

There are plenty of bloggers out there spouting a lot of hot air and not really standing behind their blogs or their purpose. As one person replied, it is often the silent ones who have their head down doing all the hard work.

This “disconnect” Matt talks about is often called talking the talk, not walking the walk; all talk and no action; full of crap; sh*t or get off the pot; on the fence; a stick in the mud; his bark is worse than his bite; all show; cardboard cut-out; put on a good act; working hard – hardly working; blind them with brilliance and baffle them with bullsh*t…

Amazing. This disconnect between the “show” and the reality is so common, we’ve made up a lot of phrases which seem to excuse the lackadaisical folks around us.

Are you talking the talk and walking the walk with your blog?

I’ve ranted before about web designers and web hosts who talk a good talk, but when you peek under the hood, you see that their sites are supported with 10 year old technology, designed with tables and abusive and overworked Javascripts.

What about bloggers who spout “Top 10 SEO Tricks” and “Six Steps to Blogging Success”, and the techniques and tips offered are six years out-of-date or based upon assumptions? Or the same 10 Top Tips passed around the web so long they are the Tired Top Ten Tips.

The mythology is that if you blog about these things, traffic will flock to your blog. But they don’t add anything new to the conversation. You certainly aren’t showing off your expertise with these old lists.

What about bloggers to do their best to bring you the “hottest and latest news about fill-in-the-blank” with nothing but links and blockquotes to other people’s original content. Some of these folks use feed scrapers to bring you the news, making it look like they did the work. Do you think they are adding to the conversation? How hard do you think they are working to make the blogging world better? Would you consider them experts?

The “I’m the expert” bragging quality so often found on blogs makes you wonder if the blogger really knows what they are blogging about. The harder the effort they put into convincing you that they are the expert – well, it makes me suspicious. Aren’t you?

If you want their blog to be your resume, shouldn’t your blog be a true reflection of your capabilities? As Matt said so beautifully, many aren’t. It’s all talk, showbiz fluff, and makeup that fails under the bright lights of truth and reality.

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Are you walking the walk with your blog? Or just talking the talk? Do you really know what you are blogging about, or blogging because you think you have to? Or are you out there, learning the lessons, earning the bruises, and sharing your experiences with others? Or just passing notes in blogging class?

Does your blog make a difference in the world around you? Do you help people? Does it change the way things work or get people thinking about how things need to change in order to work better?

I know I’m singing to the choir, but I want you to stop and think about your blogging. Is your blog really proof of what you know, or of what you hardly know?

Ask yourself if you are a blogger who rants and points, or a blogger that fixes things? Or are you quietly blogging while making the world a better place?

What does it look like when a blogger is talking the talk and walking the walk with their blogs? What makes you believe they know that which they blog?


Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on .

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