For those who blog you are probably familiar with what happens when you start writing about something you believe strongly in or a practice you’re undertaking and find that as you write, you no longer believe it. It’s disheartening and yet it’s magical.
I have 19 blog posts that have not and will not be published. But I don’t delete them. They serve as a reminder of a hidden benefit of blogging. It’s only as you write that you can begin to see flaws in your thinking; you see holes in your logic. It’s at this point that you realize you are writing a lie and if you click publish you are lying to others and worse, lying to yourself. So publishing never happens. But that’s OK because you are better for having begun.
A most commonly touted benefit of enterprise social technology is that if people share inaccurate info it can be seen and corrected – and this is a good thing. But writing and not releasing is equally powerful and only comes through the transparency that social tech enables. If we, the potential sharer, recognize our flaws before revealing them and because we were to reveal them, we improve. It’s an act of reflection and something completely unseen/immeasurable to the organization but it should be encouraged by the organization – Writing as an act to right yourself; it’s an exercise in self-development which is always good for business.
