This is where I be-log

One morning last month, I was in a convention hall filled with high schoolers. They were there to take part in a two-day business start-up simulation exercise, and I was there, along with a dozen other grizzled veterans adult "advisors", to help coach them on the finer points of manufacturing, pricing and selling widgets. A marketing professor from a local college was brought in to give a talk on self-presentation and marketing. He was energetic and entertaining, but I did a bit of a double take (or its aural equivalent) when, in speaking of different ways in which people "market" and "present" themselves, he said: "And some people even use the internet to talk about themselves on their 'B'-Logs". "'B'-Log"? I wondered. Was this a new computer programming language, following on Fortran, COBOL, or C++? And then I realized he was referring to blogs. I almost started into a derisive chortle, shame on me, before being struck by the possibilities of the word. Be-log. That's how I'd like to think of these moments in time and cyberspace. Life should unfold as time passes, but as lived it often feels like an accelerating, crumpling, imploding blur. So let this be the log of randomly planted flags: I was here. This is what was on my mind and in my heart, in this hour and on this day.

Comments

[Patricia Tryon]

I admire your high-mindedness, but I still think it's pretty funny! But maybe that's because I b-log, and he probably doesn't ;-)

[Chan S.]

I admit it was pretty funny. It was very clear that not only did he not blog, he did not know any one else who blogs, nor had he ever read a blog, nor had he ever encountered the word 'blog' in oral conversation. And this was someone who was probably at least 10 years younger than me, who's around college kids all day long...but that's not a knock on him, just a bit of a reality check (for me) about the imagined vs. actual influence of blogging on people who don't already b-log or read blogs.

[Patricia Tryon]

Ha! So we're saying that he is... um... like... TWENTY years younger than me. Hahahahaha! Or should that be: Bwah-ah-ha-ha-ah? ;-)