Can Blogging Make You Smarter, Happier, and More Productive?
It's a few years old, but here's an interesting article from July 2006 in the Chronicle of Higher Education by UC-Berkeley blogger/professor/economist J. Bradford Delong, as part of a Chronicle series on the topic "Can Blogging Derail Your Career?":
The hope of all of us who blog is that we will become smarter, do more useful work, be happier and more productive, and will also impress our deans so they will raise our salaries. The first three hopes are clearly true: Academics who blog think more profound thoughts, have a bigger influence on the world — both the academic and the broader worlds — and are happier for it. Are we more productive in an academic sense? Maybe. We will see when things settle down.
Are our deans impressed? Not so far, but they should be. A lot of a university's long-run success depends on attracting good undergraduates. Undergraduates and their parents are profoundly influenced by the public face of the university. And these days, a thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed Web logger is an important part of a university's public face.
2 Comments:
What Dr DeLong says is very true. The econ Blogoshere is a large reason why I want to attend grad school at George Mason.
Mark,
I came to blogging very late in the scheme of things (this year) and as a consumer, not an originator.
One of my employees is one of your MBA students and he pointed out one of your posts to me.
That got me hooked to your blog and through yours, several from other universities.
I have to say that I have learned a great deal about what's going on in the world (and why) as a result. I have enthusiastically passed on these resources to others and often quoted from them (with attribution, of course)
As public faces of your universities, you are all excellent and productive ambassadors.
Please keep the great work going. You are each doing a wonderful and highly valued service to an appreciative and expanding community of fans.
(No, this is not from your wife, girlfriend, significant other, or even your mother)
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