Blog, Blogger, Bloggest

I thought you might find it interesting to know some of the demographics for this blog, including that surprisingly (to me anyway) we have reached out a bit globally: Japan, Korea, Turkey, India, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Serbia and Montenegro, Venezuela, and locations throughout the United States. We have been using sitemeter.com to track visits to the site since its inception and are approaching 1,000 hits, with over 100 just in the past week. Admittedly, some of these are accidental or somewhat random, but I am at least entertained that regardless of intention, others are reading about what's happening at our university from those who work here rather than official publications or news stories. While we may not change our vision just yet to “becoming internationally recognized leaders in higher ed administration,” it does encourage me to “keep on keeping on,” with the intention that the FAS division at Cal State San Marcos is my primary audience.

In his own blog entry “Beware the CEO blog,” Seth Godin explains that “nobody is going to read your blog, link to your blog or quote your blog unless there's something in it for them.” Godin’s requirements for that to happen include that blogs must be based on candor, urgency, timeliness, pithiness, controversy, and perhaps utility; bloggers need at least four of those elements to be worthy. And finally, “save the fluff for the annual report.”

From Andy Wibbels’ business blog, we learn that most blog readers don’t contribute themselves to cyberspace archives – from the entry “Jakob Nielsen on Why No One Comments on Your Blog”:
90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.

So it’s okay to lurk and to not actively comment, but you might find other ways to contribute by suggesting topics that you find candid, urgent, timely, pithy, controversial, useful, or even fluffy. Look forward to hearing from you.