There seems to be a “renewed interest” in connections between blogs and academia. It must be “in the air.” Sure goes well with the movement toward Open Access and the discussions about the roles of public intellectuals.

I might ping this post from two directions: first, yet another of my own critique of the current academic establishment; and, second, a message to academics about how to blog efficiently.

One piece of advice is to either blog exclusively about academic topics or set up different blogs for academic and personal ideas. Maximilian Forte (a colleague from Concordia’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology) has split his blogging activities, recently. I think using blogs exclusively for academic purposes might be easier. Microblogs, social networks, and podcasts can then be used for personal purposes to great effect.
Another piece of advice is to not pay too much attention to what’s happening in terms of blogging, generally. It’s a wide world out there and there’s no reason a blogging academic should measure her-/himself to A-List bloggers (like Hugh).
A broad idea is to not heed any advice. “Blogging should be fun” is an imprecise version of “blogging is more efficient if your expectations aren’t predetermined and you’re ready to play with the tools a bit.”

Thanks for a much more useful version of your blogging advocacy post. With HuffPo exposure, we might just get more blogging academics in the near future. (Assuming academics read HuffPo. Well, they’re supposed to be liberals, so…)