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Observations on BlogWalk1.0
Being the last guest in Enschede, Martin has left this morning and that means that finally our BlogWalk meeting is over.
There are a couple of things that I've noticed during the last four days. First of all it is interesting to see that people who (mostly) know each other only through their weblogs are very capable of having really interesting discussions in real life. Through reading eachothers weblogs there seems to be a certain shared set of values and common use of terminology which makes it relatively easy to discuss certain topics in depth within minutes.
Secondly, to reach such in-depth discussions you need to have face-to-face contacts. The interaction through weblogs is relatively slow, because of the time and space distance you have to bridge. Therefore meeting with webloggers face-to-face really strengthens the bonding between people (which is not very surprising) . Meeting f-t-f with people means that you have a clearer understanding of the context of a person (also read Lilia's reflection on this). Not only the physical aspects of someone such as the way someone walks and talks, but also the things about one's personal life and interests are very important to be able to understand the things people write on the internet (and shows that you can have clear misconceptions about a person, e.g. when age is considered :-). That means that it would be highly adviseable to all people involved in the blogospere to try and organize meetings every now and then (in a relatively small setting), just to be able to understand more about eachother and have real intens discussions.
Personally, I'm motivated to get more involved with KM. The things that were being discussed last friday really appealed to me. Thinking about how organizations could (and maybe should) use the opportunities that e.g. weblogging offer for knowledgesharing. Another thing I'm highly interested in is personal webpublishing and the initiative for all kinds of action starting with the individual: I write about my own interests. Making those interests publicly means that I create opportunities for myself. I can be reflective on my own work and other people can connect to me through those interests. That means that any contact with other people evolving around my weblog is initiated by myself and therefore I've got the feeling that those contacts are more truthfull. Being truthfull is something that is missing on all kind of places in our society, especially within organizational settings, and maybe the use of weblogs as a tool for personal webpublishing can bring back a little bit more truthfullness in our lives, regardless of the opportunities the internet creates of being untruthfull in every aspect. However, regular meetings between bloggers can easily overcome problems whith 'virtual identities'.
Conclusion of all this? We really need another BlogWalk meeting!
