I continue to be amazed at the degree at which those of us with similar interests can be connected in the blogosphere. There are WAY less than 6 degrees of separation in this little microcosm.
So here is what happened…I am in my RSS reader just now and notice that Heather Hamilton has a few new posts. I was eager to read her posts as she and I finally met at ERE on Wednesday. I wanted to have a chance to talk to her SO much more than I did during those brief 10 minutes, but our paths never crossed again. Regardless… her first post was about how much flying SUCKS with all of the new restrictions and the liquid restrictions are forcing us to become dry old hags in a matter of half a day on the plane sans water or even any dry-lip saving lip gloss. Great post – but here is where it gets really interesting. Heather’s second post is about a blog written by a guy named Cornelius:
By the way, a little plug for Cornelius’ blog, which I just discovered today through Technorati:
CorpBlawg is a web log on corporate/enterprise/business blogging that is maintained by Cornelius Puschmann.
Cornelius is currently a PhD student at the Department of English Language and Linguistics of the University of Duesseldorf, Germany. His interest in corporate blogging stems from the fact that he is writing his dissertation on the corporate blog as a genre, claiming (somewhat optimistically) that he can find linguistic features which are unique to corporate blogs.
So…I tend to have similar author interests as Heather and I TOO am interested in corporate/business blogging. So I go to see what Mr. Cornelius has to say. I click on the link to his blog and there is a post up called: What blogging does to your business. Here is the first sentence that I read:
I’ve just finished reading two interesting pieces (one, two) by the anonymous author of the Yankee Wombat blog. The writer describes corporate blogging in conjunction with Marshal McLuhan’s theory of media and culture, as outlined in The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). In the second entry, he also discusses Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazar (1999) which compares the open source model of software development with customary closed-source methods used by companies such as Microsoft.
Now – I don’t know Cornelius from Adam and probably wouldn’t have found him without being interested in Heather’s blog. That Mr. Anonymous (and EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT) author that Cornelius wrote a POST about, the so-called ‘Yankee Wombat’:
that’s Julian’s Dad – Lorenz Gude
He is much more of a political blogger – but he has recently written about business blogging and is gaining quite a bit of attention. He keeps threatening to write some pieces for EXCELER8ion. I wish he would.
It is a small world…but it is a microscopic blogosphere. This had been portrayed as a negative – I view it as efficient.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Yup, McLuhan must have meant the blogosphere when he was talking about the global village. It’s certainly nice to know who Mr. Gude is! Not that Yankee Wombat doesn’t have a nice ring to it, but citing a Mr. Wombat still feels weird when you’re seriously discussing corporate communications.
Best,
Cornelius
That is a good story. Did I tell you that I met Jason Davis then found out that he lives about two or three miles from me? That seems to be related but I can’t say how. I guess it’s another example of thinking your connecting with people far away and find that they are in a sense in your own backyard.
Cornelius – Thanks for the comment. You have a great blog and I have added you to my RSS reader so that I can follow your posts. BTW – Julian’s dad MAKES me call him Mr. Wombat.
Animal – I had no idea you lived so close to JD, that makes more sense now. Julian and I had a similar experience with meeting Ami from Recruitomatic as well. Julian actually wrote a post about this on his personal blog here if you’re interested – http://www.blog.julians.name/2006/08/15/110/
Well, I am glad to see my nom de guerre is causing so much strife. Shannon you don’t have to call me Mr. Wombat as long as you keep tickling that son of mine with your nice long South Florida black snake whip. By the way it’s neither Mr. Yankee nor Mr. Wombat – its Yankeewombat ’cause I’m both Australian and American – so its a way to let folks know that I have a bicultural point of view. Crikey, sometimes I am as American as Apple Pie, mate.
I have been writing about corporate blogging because I am interested in developing a broader critical theory of Media. I am taking up Camile Paglia’s challenge to do just that because she thinks – and I agree – that French Postmodernism filled a vacuum in the 70s in North American academia and that we need other ways of thinking about media. She suggests basing such a new theory on Norman O Brown, Leslie Fiedler and …yes…Marshal McLuhan. I am undecided about Fiedler and Brown, but studied McLuhan pretty extensively in the 60s and 70s. I’ve added Eric S Raymond to the mix and am looking at using some of the philosophic ideas of Robert Persig and/or William James to address such aspects as the relationship between creativity and structure. So I have been road testing some of those ideas on the very new field of corporate blogging to see if they made sense to me and to others.
I wished we could have spent more time together too. Next time for sure, OK? Regardless, I was glad to meet you in person, even though it was only briefly. Maybe we can discuss presenting together on blogging at a future conference or other such event…just a thought.
Small world, huh? And I only found Cornelius (whose blog I also think rocks) via technorati. Who says technology can’t bring people together? : )
So, Mr. YankeeWombat, you lost me on some of that. But any thoughts on lip gloss? No? OK, nevermind.
Heather – I would LOVE to present with you. Anytime – let me know.