Part 3 (What Luck!)
Just by chance I happened to stumble upon Charlie Rose on PBS
yesterday. I've never seen him before.
His guest was Chris Anderson, the curator of the TED Conference.
The subject was human communication in general, with special
emphasis on the internet.
During the interview, Chris brought up a very interesting point
when he reminded us that people love to sit around a
campfire and talk.
I instantly had a rush of memories from my past where
I sat in the dark around a fire with friends, talking about
anything and everything; someone might be playing the guitar;
people singing along; storytelling, and of course, sometime
during the evening there were the campfire jokes
... people entertaining people.
When I substituted "blog" for "campfire", a dramatic shift in
my concept of what constitutes a great blog happened.
Blogs, I've concluded, are really discussions around a campfire.
Chris also talked about something called "mirror neurons"in the
brain. He claims that dynamic speakers that have magical ability
to mesmerize their audiences when they talk transmit their brain
waves to the audience. The audience member actually become
the speaker, and thusly are tuned in with great interest.
I wonder aloud, " Can great blog emulate this same phenomenon ?"
It's agreed that a great blog, always informs and educates its' readers.
In consideration of this fact, I remind myself that education is one of
the biggest industries in the world.
Think about it!
To get a promotion at work, you have to show the boss that you
have the skills that merit a promotion.
What are the countless ads in the media attempting to do?
- to tell you what their product does,
- to inform you why it is better than their competitors' similar product
Why do the bookstores, libraries, and Amazon.com exist?
To serve mans' natural thirst for knowledge.
How many "business" seminars have you been invited to?
Chris also discussed the well known fact, that all subject areas of
education are inter-related... meaning that the study of science
can improve your understanding of the arts and vice-versa.
Some Interesting Education Statistics
In 2010, the Canadian government spent 12.7% of it's $280 billion
budget, on on education and 6.3% of that same budget on the military
By comparison,the U.S.government spent 17 % of its' $3,456 billion
budget on education, and 19.5 % of that budget on the military.
The last topic Chris talked about was the work of an ant
researcher named Deborah Gordon. I looked up the talk she gave
on TED Conference about ants. I sat through her 15 minute presentation,
during which she shared some of the things she discovered about ants,
during 20 years of closely studying them.
What I found interesting was that Deborah found that there is no
central control in the ant colonies. Nothing, not even the queens gave orders.
All ants generally do a certain task in the colony, but these tasks
change according to contingencies.
For example, an ants' main job may be to forage for food.
If the nest becomes damaged in any way, this foraging ant now switches
to nest repairs.
The news of the damage is communicated by other ants who were working
in the area of concern.
The number of ants who may switch jobs as needed by the colony
is not set at a fixed number. From what I understood it's all done
through scent communication - there's a topic for someone.
Deborah also notes that small ant colonies are less stable than large ones,
even though the ants of all colonies, large and small, are basically
the same age, because the life span of an ant is only 1 year.
What has this got to do with blogging?
It's about communication.
Where is all of this leading you ask?
Well, armed with this additional knowledge and insight, I'm now, far
better prepared to select my blog topics. Keep in mind that what I
said in my last post still holds true.
Your blog must be interesting.
It must be delivered in an interesting manner.
Next post I'll finally tell you about the topics I've chosen for my new blogs
and why I've chosen them.
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