Jackie Danicki

Thanks to Joe Wessels for the kind mention in his Cincinnati Post column today about the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce’s blog contest. I appreciate the link love and the nod. (I know Joe, so I was amused rather than insulted by his comment that my politics “may sour some”. I get a lot of hostility as an extreme liberal in this town of conservative and leftist stasist statists, but I’ll soldier on somehow.)

Here’s the thing about this blogging contest: It was a pure PR exercise by the company sponsoring it and the Chamber. It’s not about merit, but about drumming up business for a one-size-fits-all, neatly packaged blogging seminar. (Full disclosure: Since 2004, I’ve made money by working with organizations in Europe and the US in very hands-on workshops that introduce them to the tools being used by people on the web and guiding them as they discover the applications of those for their personal and work lives. This often leads to more hands-on coaching and guidance - the kind of thing some people call “consulting” and “strategizing” and “facilitation”.) The contest was also an attempt to make the Chamber look “with it” as they jump on the blogging bandwagon…only a few years after it took off down the road.

Best of luck to the Chamber and the sponsor, but it’s sort of sad to see how seriously this stuff gets taken. Any sort of “best of” contest for blogs works under the assumption that people are one-dimensional, and that we can all be neatly compartmentalized under marketing designations. The “best blogs” will vary from person to person, depending on his or her very individual interests; they will also tend to cover a gamut of topics, from the political to the personal to the funny to the mundane.

Cincinnati has some excellent niche blogs which cater to a single topic, many of which I read and some of which were recognized in the contest. Good! They deserve the exposure and it’s very cool that a couple of the bloggers got shiny new iPhones for something they do out of love. But the fact that the organizations bestowing the prizes don’t seem to have much understanding of the network means that we shouldn’t worry too much about the great local blogs that didn’t make the cut.

Just to avoid hurt feelings and arguments: The title of this post refers both to the contest and to my blog, which I know full well is relevant only to a small fraction of people on this planet, let alone in this town. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Learn it, live it, love it.

(For the record, I nominated Nasty, Brutish & Short, written by a guy whose politics I usually disagree with but who delivers the goods with every damn post, whether it’s about the elliptical machine in the hallway, legal issues, or the Enquirer’s irresponsible and reckless reporting.)

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