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The Benefits of Blogging

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I’ve heard from friends who blog that they receive all sorts of benefits to their daily life. They increase their networks, organize ideas, maintain writing skills, and stay current with friends. I experienced an interesting experience a few weeks ago and this has been sitting in my “posts to do” list.


Now, the readership of this blog is relatively small, I don’t even actively track it. Hell, I thought I’d won an Oscar (or at least an IMA) when I got my first hat tip (thanks Ben). However I still get a lot of benefits from blogging. I love to write (more to improve my skills than to show off), I feel more connected to “what’s going on,” and it gives me an excuse to those trycoolnewtools (Web 2.0 Baby!). Most importantly though, I organize and store ideas that normally would just pass in and then out of my head. If I decide to blog something, I think about it on a much more intense level and I retain more from the experience. It’s like going over your school notes and highlighting them, you just learn a little bit more the second time around. Notice that none of those benefits are social — I get few comments, most of my friends don’t even know what a blog is, and aside from Chris and Ben I don’t interact actively with many of the other bloggers that I read (something I’d like to change, BTW).

None of those benefits were social, until now that is. I’ve experienced meeting my first “reader” — It turns out that the marketing director of my school had poked around a site I had mentioned in an press release they did for me and found my blog. She passed it on the the co-founder of the school, Stephen Kopels, who I literally thank my graces for on a bi-weekly basis. a consider him my mentor in the film world, he’s exceedingly talented — and thankfully, not easy to please but quick to forgive. Since I had mentioned a bit of advice he gave me early on — he was flattered. I’m glad you dig the blog Stephen and it feels pretty cool to have you reading. I hope you’ll continue on and drop in for a few comments when you deem appropriate — you have a mind that should be shared with the public!

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