Paint me a picture, sing me a song

Amongst other things the evening has been given partially over to reading up on some blogs, and a great post from Mitch at Six Pixels sparked of some ideas of my own;


When The Definitions Are Wrong

One of the biggest disruptions you may have noticed since the pervasiveness of Social Media is our definition of things

So what is a blog?

For me it is mostly a personal journal, that is available to me at anytime and any place. Yes it is public, but mostly only technically so as there are few links and prompts for readers.
It is a place to reflect, gather up links, insights and ideas. To make things clearer by putting them into writing, and to challenge myself in terms of concepts and ideas that need a bit more thought.

For a lot of people it is a way of life - the teen blogs and fashion blogs spring to mind. It is how they interact with their peers, how they define and shape themselves. It is about communication certainly, but also about building an image (or a brand?), shaping the story.

Above all it is everything it has ever been - meaning archives by date, tag or topic - a repository of collected posts, comments, links and media (images, video etc)

So what is a website?

Simply a subset of content, structured and presented at a certain time to a certain user. On a blog everything is (in principle) there for everybody, whilst a website might adapt to the user (dynamic content, personalized) and vary over time with out storing the older versions.


Just those two words give so much meaning and so many expectations when we navigate the web. Will the page be there tomorrow? Will it look the same, and will it give us the same information?

I took some time put to watch a video on MTV - in and of itself a rare occurrence these days, as the music videos have almost all moved to the sub-channels that are premium paid - namely Runaway by Kayne West (YouTube).
No doubt a video that stretches the definition and scope of music video, more like a mini movie or the visual equivalent of a concept album. Yet it was still clearly a music video. The visuals tied into and built around the music. The story was there but served mostly to lift the different segments (verses?) into their own setting.

Would it have been better at five minutes?

Maybe, but sometimes to change and evolve things we need to push it beyond the natural limits, cross into a different but related realm in order to get a new frame of reference. Disruption and discomfort breeds innovation and change. You don't change by looking closer at yourself, but by looking at other things, other fields, other industries, other people or cultures.


Or like a short but thoughtful post put it (talking about people first, then companies):

Brand-driven businesses are of necessity mired in the competitive trap of trying to be somebody. To be the biggest, loudest, bestest somebody on the block. Innovation-driven businesses are trying to do something: they win by making better, doing better and being better.

(unfinished business)

So if you are trying to BE a blog - how is that working out? And just what is a blog - for YOU?

- ...and the sun is so far away, and sorely missed - ten below for weeks now...