Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about the presumed self-centeredness of bloggers.   The topic came up again today when I read Patricia Kitchen’s post, which said that while speaking at recent conferences, Patricia had audience members dismissing all blogs as rants or hyper-personal minutia written by the self-absorbed.

For those of us entrenched in the blogosphere on a daily basis, sometimes it’s difficult to see the forest from the trees.  We often forget that still only a small segment of the population actually follows blogs, and that people who do are less interested in our individual goings-on and prefer instead to read high-quality advice and feature content that in fact looks suspiciously like traditional journalism.

In a post written a while ago, I said that blogging is not for everyone, and I believe that if you’re thinking of starting a blog or keeping up with the one you may already have, you should take the time to evaluate what you hope to achieve by doing it.  For example, some people may want to treat their blog as more of an online journal, including personal and highly subjective information that is meant mostly for their friends and family’s eyes.  There’s nothing wrong with this approach.

But if you’re going through the trouble of writing a blog with the goal of using it to help you become an established expert in your field, and/or a credible potential hire who’ll appear attractive to employers and recruiters, you need to realize that a professional blog is no place for baseless opinions or runaway diatribes.  My readers come to Water Cooler Wisdom expecting concrete career advice from the perspective of someone with a consulting practice that helps young employees survive in the business world.  Tough as it is for me to accept sometimes, they have no interest in hearing about my day – unless I can use the story about the crazy guy I met on the subway to make a point about career success.

Patricia Kitchen tells us that professional bloggers should never be cavalier with facts or attribution of sources.  I agree, and would also add this advice: read others bloggers in your field and cite their work so that the opinions you express are not just your own.  Think about what your readers REALLY need to know, and then scout out facts and tips that answer their burning questions.  And don’t reinvent the wheel just so you can say you have a blog.  If you want to write, you’ll find that there is no shortage of already-established outlets that would be grateful for your contributions!