When I tell folks at my day job, in an IT department mind you, that my hobby is blogging, I get blank stares and rolled eyes.

The thing is that all those people get tons of information from blogs and they don’t even know that they’re on blogs. I think that’s a great thing.

Maybe we bloggers should use terms that the rest of the world can understand. I’m a writer for a website. I’ll try that and see how it goes over.

Thanks for asking the question.

Cheers,
Nneka

Then again, it’s like saying I write, I’m a writer. Then they ask you what do you write about? So the normal reaction for ‘i blog’ should be what do you blog about? And you explain.

Better just say ‘I blog about XYZ’ from the start and save the confusion

Lorelle writes to help others build an audience on the web. I write about career management for cubicle warriors.

A structural engineer doesn’t mean anything, but a structural engineer who converts cargo planes to passenger planes now means something.

“I blog” is not the right answer; it is no different than saying “I self-actualize.” What we do is the service we provide our readers.

Rather, I tell them they need an online “recent news” page on their new site. Then their ears perk up and they become interested.

I think it will take many more years before the term “blog” is better understood and accepted by many people.

When he asked ‘So what do you do then ?’, I replied ‘I keep a blog’.

However, the words came out wrong and he thought I said ‘I need the bog’.

Many of my fellow writers are just happy to have a Web site, and consider blogging a waste of time or too technically challenging.

I think I’m so mainstream, and then find that others consider my work very techno-geek.

Still, I just changed my business card to say “Writer and Blogger” because even though I think that writing is writing, so many others do not, and the card is for them not me.

If I’m not mistaken, niche blogging was only popular this year (or was it last year?) and before that, people tend to think that blogging was for under-aged girls to talk about their crushes and parties (!!!).

I had a better experience though, since we talked more about the subject of what my blog was rather than “blogging” itself. (My blog features some humor stuff about the TV show “24″ that I write for Dave Barry’s blog, plus other TV topics that are only on my blog). I was surprised by the whole conversation, to say the least.

Maybe it’s something about people that put their hands into someone else’s mouth that makes them want to talk about blogs. I’m not sure I want to test that theory though…