10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog

Since Lance, Laurie and I relaunched HRM Today I find myself answering the following question at least once per day: Why should HR Professionals blog?

This is both an easy and not so easy question to answer.

Some people still seem to think of The Internets as a scary place; a place where only the ignorant play. A place to

* Participate in anonymous debauchery,
* Find crazy pictures and stories,
* Get your identity stolen,
* Find out your partner is having "an affair of the heart",
* Be harassed by scary people

and other such things.

While all of those things can certainly be done on the internet, plenty of "normal" people use the internet for perfectly normal things:

* Keeping in touch with friends and family,
* Reading the news,
* Buying and selling everyday items, and
* Researching topics that interest them.

It's kind of like that often misquoted Bible verse, "Money is the root of all evil". The correct quote is actually, "the love of money is the root of all evil."

Let's be clear: using the internet (and, for that matter, having money) is not bad. Using the internet (or money) to harass people, break confidentiality, or be an ass in general is bad (or, not something that I recommend, anyways). The key is to get educated, have good intentions and boundaries, and above all, be careful.

Some of you may be asking yourself, "But Jenn, how is using your real name online being careful?!"

There are many pros and cons to anonymous and non-anonymous blogging and use of other Web 2.0 technologies; far too many to go into here. What I can offer you is this: having seen both sides of the coin, I prefer non-anonymous blogging & participation. It keeps me true to myself, my colleagues, employers and friends. It builds a body of work that I can claim as my own. It's me and it's not something I'm ashamed of; quite the opposite in fact. To protect myself & my loved ones, I don't blog about everything in my life.

With that, I give you 10 reasons why HR professionals should blog:

1. It's fun.

2. You make friends, new business contacts and find opportunities you would not have otherwise.

3. You get to vent & commiserate.

4. If you're a consultant or own your own business, you can drive business to your site via your blog. If you blog for your employer, you can help drive candidates to apply for open positions.

5. It's a great conversation starter.

6. You participate in talking about the profession instead of hearing about the profession from others (especially those pesky "experts").

7. Sometimes you make money, get gifts & freebies.

8. Sometimes you have fans - and they are adorable and sometimes even "star struck" when they meet you in person. Really!

9. It's a creative outlet. Your blog can be a work of art.

10. You learn more about yourself, the profession and technology than you ever thought possible.

Start your blog today. It's free & you don't have to be a technology guru to do it. If you know how to send an email or look up something on the internet, you know enough to start a blog.

Get to it.

Tags: 2.0, blog, business, friends, hr, human, internet, money, networking, professionals

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Comment by HR Wench on September 16, 2008 at 4:03pm: Gireesh - Absolutely! Well put.

Comment by Gireesh Sharma on September 16, 2008 at 9:43am: Your blog is your expression of thought beyond your normal work. It allows you to share your informal thoughts with everybody else. It gives you recognition. So Blog....

Comment by HR Wench on September 15, 2008 at 3:04pm: Michael - UR awesome!

Comment by Michael VanDervort on September 15, 2008 at 1:14pm: Dan,

At a blogging panel I attended this past weekend in Orlando, panel members gave some advice on building traffic to your blogs. It was "be everywhere". Comment on blogs, post, talk with people, send them emails, work IM, and it will generate interest from people who find you interesting.

I am in most of the places that Jenn is (some not, some different) and she is right, it isn't that much time. However, what she didn't say was, you get back what you put in, jsut like in real life. Tech tricks help, but at the end of the day, you have to be passionate and committed towards making yur intiative successful, just like any other project.

-- Michael / Human Race Horses

Comment by HR Wench on September 15, 2008 at 12:51pm: Dan - Most of those are automatically updated via RSS feed. For the ones that aren't, I check in from time to time or just "as needed" (like adding a book I just finished to my Amazon "read" list). It's not as much work as it sounds, promise! That is the beauty of Web 2.0 - easy & seamless updating for the most part. The big portion of the work is done when you set things up (like Friend Feed).

Comment by Dan Johnson on September 15, 2008 at 11:37am: I can barely keep up with my blog, facebook, twitter, and HRM Today. I can't imagine how much time you spend on the computer Jenn.

Comment by HR Wench on September 12, 2008 at 5:14pm: Maven: You've got to work it :) All of the freebies I've received have been due to others "finding me". Are you findable? I'm findable on HRM Today, BlogHer, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, Stumbled Upon, Digg, Blog Catalog, Amazon.com, Experience Project, Technorati, RecruitingBlogs.com.....and more. A lot of those are "automatic", meaning I don't have to visit each to be "present" and "update my stuff". Some, yes, but definitely not all. Work it! :)

Comment by HR Maven on September 12, 2008 at 4:47pm: Oh, wonderful! All right on the money....except the free gifts part. I am missing out on free gifts and goodies. :)

10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog

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