I was curious to find something on writing and communication in our modern age and happened upon a talk by Mena Trott – touted as the “Founding Mother” of blogging. She founded Moveable Type which we use at CHS for our teacher blogs. Given that I am trying to nudge myself…and all of you…to experiment with this form, I thought it would be an appropriate talk to review for my first post.
Her primary argument seemed to be that we, as a culture, need to move away from the perception of blogs being scary or attack oriented (by which I think she means those blogs that are designed to go after public figures, or blogs which seem to encourage negative comments from readers…I wasn’t totally clear on this as I don’t have such an impression), and to see how blogs can essentially “flatten our world.” That she was such a young woman (just 27) and yet considered a tested veteran and leader in the field shows how this medium of communication is still in the early stages of adoption. This was evident in her argument as well: she urges the audience to try out blogging, to explore how it might fit in our lives. She primarily appealed to pathos through the use of stories of how bloggers used their blogs to share inspirational or moving stories that were able to reach readers around the world. She developed her talk through the use of example, beginning with her own story of blogging and some self-deprecating stories. Her humor was augmented by the use of surprising or funny photos from her blog such as a photo of her husband dressed in a less-than-flattering costume of her design which she used to prove that he is a wonderful, supportive husband and an incredibly good sport. There were other examples of blogs that effectively used photographs to help tell a story, several of which charted the growth of a child or documented members of a family tree. Trott spent little time on her own company, using initially to help add ethos, and then later as an explanation as to how one British woman’s blog about her ultimately unsuccessful fight with cancer touched all the members of her own company. The woman was an early adopter/Beta tester of their company’s blogging site, and Trott used screen shots of the blog along with a narrative to drive home her ultimate argument of how blogs can (and should) be used to help connect us across a very large, very diverse planet. She ended with a plea for those listening to her talk to consider starting a blog as well.
