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This week I’ve been writing and speaking about the nascent field of professional blogging – that is, the practice of being a consulting blogger-for hire, or operating a weblog with a functioning revenue model that goes beyond Google Ads. This is a field that interests me greatly, and I’m working to making it a bigger part of my diverse career.

So I joined forces with a highly energetic and creative group of 20 like-minded entrepreneurial bloggers, and we’ve formed the Pro Bloggers Association (PBA). Today, I am pleased to announce that I was just elected to this group’s board!

I’m in great company…

Paul Chaney of Radiant Marketing Group (and newly-minted PBA president) broke the news of this association in his Jan. 18 entry Pro Blog Assoc. Founding Team Members. The initial group of 20 bloggers has now voted, and here’s the lineup for the founding board of the PBA:

Officers:

• President: Paul Chaney, Radiant Marketing
• Vice President: Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends
• Secretary: Tris Hussey, Larix Consulting
• Treasurer: Toby Bloomberg, Bloomberg Marketing

Board Members:

• Yvonne DiVita, Windsor Media Enterprises
• Amy Gahran, Contentious
• Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion
• Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dana’s Blog
• Jeremy Wright, Inside Blogging

My expectation that this kind of group would be controversial has proved true. The PBA has already attracted criticism from Allan Jenkins, who said, “Let’s hope this meme dies an early death, and we communicators can go back to advising clients without pretending to be high priests of a secret art.”

That’s actually a fair criticism, given that the PBA is so new we’re still trying to map out exactly what we intend to do. I can understand the impression that we’re trying to create a “sacred blog priesthood” or some kind of caste system. However, I can assure you that’s not the case – otherwise I would have nothing to do with the PBA. It’s simply a support network for communication professionals who are engaged in similar efforts and have similar goals.

This group is comprised of professional communicators who are dedicated to helping clients use weblogs creatively and well. As we’ve all seen, there are plenty of terrible ways to blog – and that definitely includes blogs published by organizations. Awful blogs don’t help anyone.

This group recognizes that the media landscape is changing; that mass media no longer holds ultimate power over most communication; and that when organizations and individuals participate constructively in public discourse everyone benefits.

Tris Hussey responded to Jenkins’ critique. Hussey said, “I suspect that when the HTML Writers Guild (I joined long ago) was formed there was the same resistance to structure. I see it as not structure as much as advocacy, leadership, a public face. People the media can talk to who can speak intelligently why this medium is changing media and information distribution for the better.”

PBA member Hans Henrik also responded to Jenkins. He observed that the PBA could, “…maybe be part of a market creation, not destruction, because the right conversation is created.” Well said.

And so the debate begins – actually, it’s just a continuation of the larger ongoing debate about weblogs and the evolving media/communication landscape. That is very, very cool.

NOTE: The PBA site should be up in a day or two.