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by Sam Gentile.
Original Post: The Power and Impact of Blogging
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Many people much more profound than me have written at length about the power of blogging and the big effects it has had on diminishing book sales and conference turnouts, and mainstream media. I am quite aware of that and the good mine has done for me (consulting gigs, jobs, MVP, INETA, etc.) and the .NET community in the 3 and 1/2 years it's been going. I want to say something and I am not sure if it's profound or not. Yesterday, I linked, in my New and Notable, to the utterly fantastic blog of Rob Caron, and I said, “There is so much great stuff in Rob Caron's New Team System Stuff - 2005-07/31 and Suggested Reading -2005-07-31 posts, that I suggest reading it all. I know I will!” Believe it or not, I printed it all out yesterday and spent the whole night reading it all and it really struck me that the quality of the VSTS and Agile bloggers and posts were so good that essentially I was getting a full education, that in the 90's I would have turned to a book or a conference for. There was so much fantastic VSTS stuff I read last night that a book could be assembled just from last night's posts! That struck me as profound. If you look at that trend and then the whole way that the relationship with Microsoft has changed due to the many bloggers, it's very profound. I can tell you, having had a relationship with Microsoft with 22 years, we all now have a level of access to designers, key players that we never, ever had. Then if you take the volumes of great information that they post, many people have questioned, what do I need a conference for? For me, conferences are still important for that personal interaction and socializing with your peers but there's no question that there is a subset of Microsoft/.NET key bloggers you could read every day and be very educated and up to speed, as well as getting virtually everything that was discussed at conferences as well as materials. So what's the message? An investment in reading quality bloggers every day will increase your knowledge and make you a better Developer/Architect/Marketer, and also your own blog could do wonders for your career and exposure. Your thoughts?
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