Sooooooo Behind in Comment Challenge!

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The road to hell (or Comment Nirvana) is paved with good intentions, but the reality of a week-long faculty institute slammed me like a two-by-four. I had intended to follow Sue Waters’ advice and combine some posts, but I am now realizing that I am nine-days behind since I last “played.” I also am noticing a decline in daily readers in my own blog simply because I have not been blogging routinely like I have done for the past four months. Now that the Institute is done, I have quite a few blogs in me (started this morning with Parallel Universes), so I plan to blog seriously this next week – and hopefully regain my readers along the way!

So, breaking all 31-Day Comment Challenge conventions, here is a very streamlined nine-days worth (actually eight…but you will see why below):

1. Day 10: Comment Audit: Did Chris Brogan‘s audit – actually seem okay on this one. I am definitely in to it!

2. Day 11: Comment Policy: I have to admit that I have not had so many comments that this is an issue for me! 🙂 However, I liked how Michele Martin incorporated some language into her ABOUT page, and so updated mine to reflect similar guidance. THANKS, Michele!

3. Day 12: Making Blog Comment Friendly Technically – pretty good shape here. If I am deluding myself, feedback from those commenting (PAAHHH-LEEEZZZZ) would be appreciated! 🙂

4. Day 13: Write Post Using Comments – To Be Provided (only one I cannot do in this streamlined approach)

5. Day 14: Turn Blog Over to Readers – Have not tried this, but would love for those in this challenge to take my post from earlier today (Parallel Universes) and run with it!

Comment Award

6. Day 15: Give Comment Award: This one is easy. I work with two amazing colleagues – Jeff Nugent and Bud Deihl. Jeff probably stretches me intellectually more than any person with whom I have ever worked. My award, though, would have to go to Bud Deihl. Bud is in many ways my soul mate, and we are both dog paddling in the Web 2.0 swirling stream! Bud makes a point of commenting to my blog and does so in targeted and insightful ways. I am not nearly as conscientious in commenting back to Bud’s blog – The Exploratory Learner – though I do highly recommend it. So my first commenter’s award goes to my good friend Bud Deihl, who inspires me in more ways than he knows!

7. Day 16: Go Back and Catch Up: What I am doing here!

8. Day 17: 5 in 5 – A miserable failure for all the right reasons! I do not believe in speed commenting – I like to reflect on what I have read and hopefully provide enough meat that others do the same on my blog. So I found that I could not rapidly comment to five other blogs in five minutes. That said, this challenge has opened up my ability to scan and interact with many more blogs than I was doing before May. Through Techorati feeds for CommentO8, I am developing new networks and new awarenesses that would have been difficult to develop in other ways. So I am glad I failed this portion!

9. Day 18: Analyze Comments in my own blog: Quantity is not something I have had to worry about! The most comments any one blog got was 7 – there are many with none and a sizable chunk with one to two comments. That said, since I tend to blog about things that matter to me (and I hope not just blogging for blogging’s sake), those few who do comment tend to also care and that caring comes through. It would be hard for me to predict up front that a particular post might go viral the way Will Richardson’s did this spring, but I do not have Will’s readership either. If one opens up the definition of “comment”, I have received feedback face-to-face, by email, through Twitter, and through posts others have made on their blogs. I do learn from the comments I receive…and that has value not necessarily reflected in the numbers.

Looking forward to jumping back in to the Challenge for the final 13 days! My twins were born on the 13th, so 13 has always been a lucky number for me!

3 thoughts on “Sooooooo Behind in Comment Challenge!

  1. Hi Britt
    I thought you sounded as though you needed a supportive ‘hello up there’ from a fellow challengee, e-learner and higher ed worker.

    Keeping up with everything these days is a challenge in itself, competing priorities being what they are. I have no doubt that the focus on GTD, productivity, Tweeting in 140 characters and terms like ‘windows of opportunity’ are reflections of the crazy lifestyles we lead.

    I recall 10 years ago there being far more time for reflection, reading, and research, and where consideration of whether or not to take the cellphone or the laptop on holiday just didn’t exist.

    Signs of the times I guess. Anyhow, hope you get to spend some ‘away’ time for yourself and not stress over the keyboard.

    Best wishes.

  2. Can I break all commenting rules and say excellent post? Well I going to anyway. Any post that makes me laugh several times will I read it means that you have done an excellent job and engaged the reader. Its a special talent to be able to convey humour in a post and you’ve done it well here.

    Totally agree “that has value not necessarily reflected in the numbers” — its the information they share that count.

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