So, here is the inaugural posting to my new Drupal blog. I started this site, and by extension blog, for a number of reasons. I already have a social networking presence in other domains (LiveJournal [2], Friendster [3], Tribe [4], etc.), but these venues have left me feeling a bit fragmented (a phenomenon I have researched [5]). It has taken me quite a while to work out what I am using these services for and what I hope to get out of them. For better or worse, I have come to view these other services as extending my social information sphere to the point that I haven't felt comfortable exploring other intellectual pursuits there. In other words, I have identified a personal information need, that is, a need for a venue to explore my intellectual side without the expectation of throttling the content down to a more basic social level. Don't get me wrong -- I am completely fine with social discourse; I just don't want party invitations in my archival theory.
So, why a blog? Why a Web site at all? There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, I have recognized the benefits of the blog/journal format for its knowledge management potential. Having a simple, easy to access and update (and do so from anywhere) interface allows me to increase the amount of effort I put into critical analysis and the exploration of various thoughts and observations that I have. Furthermore, the blog format offers a platform for searching and indexing these thoughts and organizing them under (hopefully) suitable semantic groupings. Finally, I hope to be able to cross-reference my entries not only with external information sources on which I may comment, but across the site to my other blog entries and writings. Think of this in terms of picking up a thread where I left off -- continuing my research and intellectual development and having a record of the same (I will not invoke the ghost of Vannevar Bush [6] at this point).
But why the public facing Web site? Why not keep this private? Well, that is a bit of an experiment on my part. I don't claim to be a genius or savant in search of a fan base, but I could see how someone could interpret my endeavor here as implying such a thing. No, to the contrary – I recognize that regardless of where I stand on whatever arbitrary knowledge scale I may be compared against, I am not all-knowing, massively intelligent, or absolutely brilliant – and that is where you, dear reader, come in.
As an experiment, I will allow comments (not comment spam, mind you) to be placed against my blog entries and writings. The hope is that someone of greater experience in some of the areas I am exploring will have something meaningful to add to the conversation – and is that not a metaphor describing the process of knowledge: a conversation? I've witnessed the de-evolution of open venues into flame wars, partisan politics, and eventually commercial exploitation, but I believe that there is a threshold below which an open venue can thrive. USENET this site is not, so hopefully I won't be spending too much time deleting irrelevant comments from anonymous blowhards. If I do, then I will finally know the results of my experiment and share them with you as I, regrettably, disable anonymous comments. I sincerely hope this does not come to pass as I am looking forward to your informative and stimulating discussion.
Let the games begin.
