So I have a new responsibility at work which now involves not only doing my regular job which often takes up 12 hours of every day but I am now tasked with the arduous responsibility of writing something called a blog for my company. As a late baby boomer I cannot profess complete ignorance of all things electronic but the notion of blog writing has eluded me until recently.
What the heck is a blog and why would anyone take the time to read what other folks are spouting out on what seems to be a continual basis? My friend Wendi told me years ago that she had a blog and I told her I thought she should see a doctor to take care of it. I was then told that blogging can get you and your company noticed and propel you higher and higher on the hamster wheel of search engine optimization (SEO). I was told that blogging can actually generate business and bring awareness to emerging issues and I was told that blogging can increase visibility on sites like Google and Bing and Yahoo.
And so … I am blogging … but what to blog about?
I could blog about environmental risk management which has been my area of expertise pretty much since graduating law school and discuss issues pertaining to things like minimizing liability for water intrusion and mold. Maybe I could mention that killing mold with bleach (which the majority of the world seems to understand as the correct methodology) does not really work and that mold spores need to be removed as well as inactivated for successful remediation.
Or maybe I could talk about asbestos- the issue which was supposed to have gone away 20 years ago but hasn’t because asbestos products can still be purchased at great stores such as Lowes and Home Depot and people are still dying from asbestos related diseases such as mesothelioma as evidenced by the number of personal injury attorneys touting their services on late night television.
Or what about wildfires and the fact that every year we are seeing greater destruction in terms of acreage burned and homes destroyed and yet the insurance industry has (for the most part) failed to recognize that they are using an archaic standard to evaluate impact from wildfires based on the presence/absence of particles that have nothing to do with the wildfire at all.
And then there is radon – a colorless, odorless naturally occurring gas present in millions of homes throughout the United States and probably the cause of much of the non-smoker related lung cancer in this country, but few people ever bother to spend the $25 needed to get a test performed that could save their lives.
And don’t even get me started in the healthcare arena where virtually everyone today knows someone who went into the hospital for one thing and came out with something called an infection caused most often by someone not washing their hands or properly cleaning an environmental surface. Studies in our country now show that more people are killed each year in US hospitals by healthcare-associated infections than if a 747 jumbo jet crashed everyday killing all on board.
And so, after writing this first blog, I feel I may be well on my way to being a blogger but alas, how often do you need to blog to make any difference?? My blogging advisors have told me there are internationally recognized blogging standards much like any competitive business and they go something like this:
Baron- One blog a week-which is acceptable
Prince- Two blogs a week-which is exceptional
Duke- Three blogs a week-extraordinary
King-Four blogs a week-are you a man or a machine?
Emperor- Five blogs a week and you will rule the blogging world
God- Ten blogs a week and you will be a BLOG GOD
In my quest for Blog God status, I fear I will now be searching constantly for new and different issues to spout on about and will be constantly wondering… are they good enough, are they long enough, are they interesting, am I blogging too much or too little, am I becoming irrelevant, am I helping or hurting my business, and I guess I am now wondering whether all this new blogging stress will result in validating the advice I gave to my friend Wendi years ago.
