The Benefits of Blogging

I’ve heard from friends who blog that they receive all sorts of benefits to their daily life. They increase their networks, organize ideas, maintain writing skills, and stay current with friends. I experienced an interesting experience a few weeks ago and this has been sitting in my “posts to do” list.

Now, the readership of this blog is relatively small, I don’t even actively track it. Hell, I thought I’d won an Oscar (or at least an IMA) when I got my first hat tip (thanks Ben). However I still get a lot of benefits from blogging. I love to write (more to improve my skills than to show off), I feel more connected to “what’s going on,” and it gives me an excuse to those trycoolnewtools (Web 2.0 Baby!). Most importantly though, I organize and store ideas that normally would just pass in and then out of my head. If I decide to blog something, I think about it on a much more intense level and I retain more from the experience. It’s like going over your school notes and highlighting them, you just learn a little bit more the second time around. Notice that none of those benefits are social — I get few comments, most of my friends don’t even know what a blog is, and aside from Chris and Ben I don’t interact actively with many of the other bloggers that I read (something I’d like to change, BTW).

None of those benefits were social, until now that is. I’ve experienced meeting my first “reader” — It turns out that the marketing director of my school had poked around a site I had mentioned in an press release they did for me and found my blog. She passed it on the the co-founder of the school, Stephen Kopels, who I literally thank my graces for on a bi-weekly basis. a consider him my mentor in the film world, he’s exceedingly talented — and thankfully, not easy to please but quick to forgive. Since I had mentioned a bit of advice he gave me early on — he was flattered. I’m glad you dig the blog Stephen and it feels pretty cool to have you reading. I hope you’ll continue on and drop in for a few comments when you deem appropriate — you have a mind that should be shared with the public!