Satheesh Kumar, developer of the Yet Another Autoblogger plugin recently wrote this post on the difficulties of conveying your enthusiasm for blogging to others around you. I can relate a lot to Satheesh’s experience, as he describes it here :
I have made a lot of fruitless attempts to bring them to the world of blogging. I have offered them free blog resources, free themes, add-ons etc. But no one was interested.
I found that my school has a high page rank .gov.in website kept useless with only a few HTML files. I have asked the principal to set up blog hosting and offer free blogs to the students. It will not only develop their communication skills but inculcate a new culture in them. I have offered all helps. But none was interested ( both students, teachers, and the administration )
I have asked a lot of senior doctors with good practice and knowledge to start blogs in their favourite topics. Most of them said some unclear reasons for not blogging. One of these senior guys ( he was my teacher too ) said ” I knows how to send emails and to use orkut, but I haven’t entered complex things like blogging.” !!
I tried a lot to confess him that its simple like email and Orkut. I clarified that he can publish a blog by just sending an email to a secret email id. But no one was interested !!!
Resistance to new technology, new services and new ways of thinking is natural. We are all animals of habit, who hate unneccessary disturbances and like rhytms, customs and habits, which we have become accustomed to. It’s easy to perceive of the internet or particular phenomena related to the internet as threats best to be avoided.
On a personal level, one reason blogging is scary is because you put yourself on the line. If you write something and put it out for public consumption, you risk looking stupid, ignorant or otherwise become exposed. Most people don’t like to be exposed. They like to hide. They like to let others go first, so that they can watch from a distance and enter the new domain, once it’s been defined and secured by others.
But does this do it for the internet? I doubt there is or will be such a thing as a defined and secure internet. You have to risk it. You have to expose yourself. There’s no going away, no hiding behind others. Because the internet is about meeting other people. Some of these you already know, others you enjoy more distant relations with, and yet others you have yet to meet. You can’t hide if you want to connect with someone. It is the real you, you want to show, if you want to be taken seriously. And it is the real you, others want to connect with.
At least if you want to yield the power of this new space and learn to embrace new ways of thinking, working and communicating, you have to risk yourself, like Satheesh, myself and millions of other bloggers, twitterers, wiki editors, and other participants of the digitally networked information economy.
There’s a slight danger that the prejudices and fears about online activities such as blogs, twittering or wikis will widen the gulf between people who resist new technology and those of us who are rapidly getting sucked in and fast learning new ways.
On the other hand, I’m hoping we can do a lot to attract others to “jump in”, even though it’s uphill a long way. I find Facebook is a good place to start, so I use every opportunity to post links there for my blogposts, and to crosspost tweets to Facebook as well, in order to make people in my network curious about what’s going on in other places. Curiosity is king, I hope. But ultimately, I want people I know to leave the confines and false safety of Facebook and enjoy the full range of opportunities available to them, once they learn to embrace them. Because this, I feel, will empower them. They can be the ones who define who they are in this space, and what they’ll use this new space for.
Ultimately, resistance is futile. However, there’s nothing to be scared of. How could there be?
We’re not going to be senseless web junkies. To the contrary, what is happening is an awakening, an image often invoked by Lawrence Lessig, like in this great, thoughtful article on Lessigs talk in Dona in Qatar in 2007. We’re in the process of extending our methods and communication on a truly global scene and unprecedented scale. There are grand shifts in power taking place right now – from those who rely on the tested and tried methods and institutions of yesterday, and those who embrace and develop new methods and institutions, rooted in use of new technology and new social opportunities which arise from the clever use of new technologies. The order of the political landscape is changing. And it is changed by you and me.
Then again, this is really scary to a lot of people, especially if you insist on your old ways in spite of what’s going on. This is scary, if you do not feel anything in your heart. If you have become so accustomed to living by another man’s rules and definitions of the world. If you are not curious to learn about the world. If you’ve got enough in yourself and do not want to embrace other people. But I can’t believe that is really the case.
Tags : blogging, groundswell, Lawrence Lessig, Satheesh Kumar, speed, technical resistance, technology
