Forrester’s rationale for this, according to VP Josh Bernoff, is that “Forrester is an intellectual property company, and the opinions of our analysts are our product.”

Which IMHO is the equivalent of saying “If you work for us, we reserve the right to own your brain and your social/professional network and reputation.”

Here’s why that’s a bad idea all the way around — not just for research, consulting, and IP companies, but for news organizations and journalists, too…

Recently, PR maven Shel Holz rightly called bullshit on Forrester’s IP argument:

The notion seems to suggest that analysts who write about their work on their own blogs are somehow sapping Forrester of its IP. Maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t see how, particularly if those blogs link back to Forrester, bringing the company to the attention of new prospects.

Other companies with bloggers don’t compare because, Bernoff argues, their products aren’t about IP. I would argue that Microsoft and IBM are entirely about IP. Both companies encourage their employees to blog wherever they like. The companies link to those blogs on a page that links to all of the company’s bloggers. (Here are links to Microsoft’s and IBM’s employee blog directories.)

…I’m not inside the heads of Forrester’s leaders, so I can’t say how much of a factor the fear of losing analysts who build strong personal brands played in the decision. I’d be disappointed if it was a major consideration, since it seems petty and mean-spirited.

…If a cost-benefit analysis had been done, I can’t believe it would have led Forrester to adopt this policy. So why, then? It’s either a provincial and wrong-minded understanding of IP or a knee-jerk reaction to the Altimeter Group situation. Either way, it’s a mistake.

Here’s the comment I left on Shel’s post:

This reminds me of struggles that many journalists currently face with the news organizations that employ them (albeit in fast-shrinking numbers). Many news orgs prohibit or limiting not only employees having their own blogs, but also whether and how they use social media on their own time and accounts.

In the journalism world they claim this is to “preserve objectivity” (as if objectivity ever existed, or as if transparency doesn’t promote credibility more effectively). But it’s pretty obvious when you talk to news managers that they often view their own employees as competition when it comes to online media. And they prefer to keep their employees in a one-down position when it comes to personal branding.

Which is not only sad and shortsighted, but dreadfully counterproductive. Especially since companies that adopt this unfortunate mindset certainly aren’t offering financial compensation (say, a couple of years’ salary, or a guarantee of employment for the next 3 years) in exchange for employees giving up crucial avenues for making their own professional opportunities.

It’s bad business all the way around — but it’s especially unfair to the employees.

…Back in 2008 I explained why building a personal online brand and presence that’s under your control (not your employer’s) is the key to having almost any kind of professional career these days — but especially careers that involve media or communications in any significant way. See: Media Career Insurance: Your Blog

1. What is the most important skill you use in your posts on the Web?

Having a good sense of what’s likely to be interesting to the people I’ve connected with (or who I’d like to connect with), and why.

2. In your opinion, what is the most effective way to tell a story online (pictures, text, sound, video, etc.)?

You should know how to use all these tools and know the people/communities you want to connect with, and what their media preferences are (both for media content type, and the tools they tend to use most). Then tell your story in a form that will work best for them.

Stories don’t exist for their own sake, and you are not your audience. It only works if you really connect with people, and that means taking them into account from the start.

3. What is the hardest part about being an online professional?

Anyone these days who’s doing any kind of media work is inherently an online professional in some way, directly or indirectly. People who deny that or try to avoid it make their own careers impossible.

4. What core skills do you think every journalism major should have?

Many, but the most basic one is: How to define and connect with communities. This is the basis of all media activity, including journalism — but too often it’s taken for granted and not studied and understood in its own right.

Right now, a lot of my colleagues (especially journalists) want to start building an independent online brand for the first time. Thus, they want to launch their first serious blog or site.

My universal advice in this case is: Don’t start from scratch (i.e., build a static site in Dreamweaver, FrontPage, or GoDaddy’s Website Tonight or SmartSpace). Instead, build your project with a popular professional-level blogging platform, even if you don’t want to blog at first.

Good blogging tools allow you to create static pages (which can comprise your whole site, if you like) and implement nearly any design strategy — while also playing nice with search engines, making your content easily linkable, and leaving your options open for more interactive approaches without having to totally rebuild the site.

Also, get a good domain for your site and use it. Over time, this provides far more search visibility and brand recognition (which benefit your career) — as well as options for easily switching platforms without losing those benefits — than a site bearing, say, a blogspot.com or WordPress.com domain.

Another reason to avoid free blogging platforms like Blogger for serious sites is that these tools are very limited. Once you get into blogging, you’ll quickly outgrow these tools — and moving a site is always a hassle.

After this, my colleagues typically want to know which tools to use to build their blog or site.

Personally, I’m a big fan of WordPress, the free open-source content management system. (It only started as a blogging tool; it’s grown.) I’ve used it for Contentious.com for many years. It’s flexible and offers just about any design theme or plug-in option I could possibly want — which encourages me to learn and experiment.

But let’s face it: I’m rather geeky. I actually enjoy spending time playing with new online tools and seeing what I can make them do. That’s not true of everyone — especially many journalists.

So to someone who’s not inherently techno-geeky and who wants start a serious blog or site for the first time (and who may want to start multiple blogs or sites), I actually recommend a different tool: Typepad, the inexpensive hosted blogging service from SixApart.

Here’s why… My reasons for recommending Typepad to non-geeks:

1. Setup simplicity
2. Relative cost, in perspective
3. Design simplicity
4. Adding special features
5. Update and security simplicity
6. Multiple sites or users

There is one drawback for Typepad for non-geeks, compared to the way WordPress sites are handled by some web hosts. If your web host is not a domain registrar (this includes Typepad) you’ll have to map a domain to your site, which is a slightly technical process.

And I have some final thoughts on the big-picture comparison between WordPress and Typepad for new-but serious bloggers.

1. SETUP SIMPLICITY

If you decide to go with a self-hosted WordPress installation, you first must sign up for an account with a web host that supports WordPress. (I recommend Dreamhost, which offers a one-click WordPress install. This is much easier than downloading the software from WordPress.org and installing it yourself.) Then you actually install WordPress on your server space, and then configuring the software.

WordPress configuration can be a bit daunting to non-geeks. It’s not always easy to figure out which options and plugins you really need. This part of the process often takes far more time than non-geeks expect in order to build a site or blog that they understand and has the features they want.

In contrast, if you decide to use Typepad, you don’t have to install or configure any software. Just select the pricing level that gives you all the features you want, and start designing your site or blog.

2. RELATIVE COST, IN PERSPECTIVE

Dreamhost costs $6/month and includes one free domain registration with each account. (Registering a domain typically costs $8-12.) Typepad offers several pricing levels, starting at $5/month.

For people who want their site or blog to be a key part of their career, I recommend Typepad’s pro-level account ($15/month). This offers full access to their design customization features, as well as the ability to host as many blogs as you want — and to allow as many authors as you want on any of your blogs.

Typepad is not a domain registrar, so you’d have to register a domain elsewhere and then connect that domain to your Typepad site (discussed below).

If you only want a single and very simple blog, the $5/month Typepad account will do to start. You can always upgrade later. But if you want to start so simply and honestly don’t enjoy learning new techno-tools, WordPress is almost certainly overkill for you anyway.

If you’re balking at $15/month for Typepad vs. $6/month for WordPress hosted on Dreamhost, ask yourself how much an hour of your time is worth — especially if it’s an hour spent wrestling with techno-stuff, and if you really hate wrestling with techno-stuff. If your time is worth more than $9/hour, you’re ahead of the game with Typepad.

3. DESIGN SIMPLICITY

Typepad offers a lot of design templates for your site that control the page layout and design elements like color and graphics. If you have the pro-level account you can fully customize the design — modify the Cascading Stylesheets (CSS), and more. Or you can hire a designer to do this for you. All of the design is handled through the main Typepad interface — you don’t need to know where to put files on a server, how to use FTP, etc.

WordPress offers thousands of themes created by developers and designers in the WordPress community, as well as theme-builder tools like Atahualpa. The trick for non-geeks is installation. Each WordPress theme is a set of files that you must upload into the correct directory on your web hosting account. And not all WordPress themes are created equally, due to the diversity of authors. Some are buggy (may display weird on certain browsers).

4. ADDING SPECIAL FEATURES

Both WordPress and Typepad allow you to extend the kind of content functionality your site or blog offers, or to interact with other services or sites. WordPress definitely offers far more options on this front, but Typepad’s options are technically simpler to implement.

In WordPress, functionality is extended via plugins. Like themes, plugins are file bundles that you must download from the web, upload separately to your web hosting account, and then activate and configure within WordPress. Some plugins, like the comment/trackback spam catcher Akismet, are absolutely essential to running any WordPress site. So if you create a WordPress site you definitely will need to learn how to find, install, configure, activate, update, and deactivate plugins. (Not hard, but necessary.)

Typepad offers a gallery of third-party widgets that you can add to the sidebar of your Typepad site. These aren’t as flexible or far-reaching as many WordPress plugins, but they’re often useful. They’re also very easy to install and configure, as long as you’re not using Typepad’s Advanced Templates feature.

5. UPDATE AND SECURITY SIMPLICITY

Almost any web site or blog can be hacked. (It’s even happened to me.) Therefore, it’s important to keep the software supporting your blog or site up to date, because security patches come out all the time.

With Typepad you don’t have to worry about doing software updates, since that’s part of the service you’re buying. You’ll always be running the latest and most secure version of Typepad.

But with a self-hosted WordPress site, you do need to make sure you keep your WordPress installation updated. The easiest way to do this is to install the WordPress automatic upgrade plugin. Then just run the auto-update whenever it tells you to.

Also make sure that you keep all WordPress plugins you use up-to-date, and deactivate or uninstall plugins you aren’t actually using.

6. MULTIPLE SITES OR AUTHORS

It’s possible that you may want to run a separate static web site (like an online brochure or resume) as well as a blog — or set up multiple sites or blogs for special purposes, like creating a hub for your coverage of an ongoing issue. Or you might want to allow other people to author posts on your blog. On these fronts, Typepad offers clear advantages over WordPress.

The regular version of WordPress requires a separate installation of the WordPress software for each site. Most web hosts also require that you set up separate hosting accounts for additional WordPress sites or blogs, which entails additional expense and setup time. (Bluehost allows up to three add-on domains under a single account, but you still have to do a WordPress installation for each site. I’ve done that and managing these extra WordPress installations there is very confusing.)

You can choose to install the multiuser version of WordPress, which allows you to set up multiple blogs with multiple authors. However, I’ve never seen a web host offer this as a one-click install with full support, so it would probably overwhelm non-geeks easily.

TYPEPAD DRAWBACK FOR NON-GEEKS: DOMAIN MAPPING

I mentioned earlier that if you want your blog or site to be a serious part of your career, it’s essential to get your own domain for your site. This not only gives you greater visibility in search engines such as Google over time; it also makes it easier for people to remember your site.

Most importantly, having your site under your own domain makes it less risky to switch to a different blog platform or host down the line. It’s always possible that you will outgrow your initial platform, or that your host will go out of business, or that you will get dissatisfied with you host’s service and want to switch.

Many web hosts where you’d install WordPress, such as Dreamhost, also are domain registrars. (In fact, Dreamhost includes a free domain registration when you set up your account.) If you register your domain through your web host, then it’s very easy to get your site or blog set up under that domain, so every page bears your domain in the URL. For this reason, I strongly recommend that non-geeks choose a web host that is also a domain registrar.

If you already own a domain and your new web host is a domain registrar, you can transfer your domain from its original registrar to your web host. (That’s not about who owns the domain, just where its reference records are managed.) Then, apply that domain to your WordPress blog.

If your web host is NOT a domain registrar (this includes Typepad), then you’ll have to map your domain to your site. Domain mapping is a moderately geeky process where you modify some information through your domain registrar so that the domain applies to a site you’ve set up.

If you set up a Typepad account, your site’s default address would be a subdomain of Typepad.com — such as johndoe.typepad.com or northoakland.typepad.com. This is harder for people to remember, and it can be harder to get traffic from search engines under this arrangement than with your own easy-to-remember domain.

So once you set up a Typepad site or blog — but before you publicize it — follow Typepad’s domain mapping instructions. It may look daunting to a non-geek, but if you take it one step at a time it will work. I’ve mapped several domains I’ve registered through SimpleURL to Typepad blogs, such as RightConversation.com. After that, your blog’s home page and every page or post within that site will bear your domain.

Many free blogging platforms, like Blogger and WordPress.com also allow you to map a domain to your blog. If you must use a free service, definitely do this.

Most domain registrars offer a domain forwarding option — where someone can type in a domain like amysite.com and it would forward to amy.typepad.com. This may seem tempting because it’s easier to set up than domain mapping, but domain mapping is really what serious bloggers want to do — for the search visibility and site portability benefits.

FINAL THOUGHTS

…All things considered, I think the technical skills required to put together a decent WordPress site or blog are fairly minimal. If you really want to learn WordPress, don’t be afraid to start there. Personally, even though I prefer WordPress I maintain a Typepad account so I can quickly create special-purpose blogs as needed for myself and my clients without having to arrange additional hosting.

However, WordPress definitely does require you to be willing to mess with and maintain server-side software. If you’re really uncomfortable with that, then definitely go with Typepad. You can switch your Typepad blog to WordPress later if you want — not a trivial task, but many people have done it.

In a recent post to the Wordtracker blog, The Bad, Good And Ugly Advice Given To Journalists On SEO (search engine optimization), U.K. journalist Rachelle Money made some excellent points about how journalists can craft stories in ways that will attract more search engine traffic.

I agree with much of what she said. However, I do disagree with her about the role of a journalist in the editorial process.

Money wrote that some SEO advice offered to journalists seems:

…overwhelmingly concerned with headlines and how to write better ones for the web. I hate to throw a couple of spanners in the works, but I have never, not once, had to write a headline for a newspaper. That’s the job of a sub-editor; they write headlines, they write the sub-headings and the picture captions and the stand-firsts. I have never had to write a title tag either; that’s the job of the online editor, and they are likely to write the links too. So in many ways the advice given to journalists isn’t really for us, it’s for the production department or the online team.

…That may have been generally true a decade or more ago.

But not today…

Today news is being published by all sorts of individuals and organizations — not just from established, well-staffed mainstream media newsrooms. Small news operations — or even individual journalists and bloggers — are publishing a considerable amount of news without a multilayered, multidepartmental structure and process.

Today, many journalist already are writing their own headlines, tags, links, and other microcontent elements. And that makes sense — because when you’re trying to establish relevance in the context of search engines, it really helps to have the person who knows the story best (the reporter) choosing and using appropriate keywords.

I agree with Money that it’s important for journalists to know more about how SEO works — because if people can’t easily find news, it might as well not exist. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to advise journos to avoid learning key SEO skills because other parts of the staff will handle those details. Even if you currently work for a news org that delegates some SEO functions to other staff, you can’t depend that those other staff will remain on the job long term — or that you will, either.

Better to learn how to write search-friendly headlines, links, and leads now than play catch-up on your own later.

(NOTE: I originally published this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Placeblogger founder Lisa Williams applied that theme to the field of journalism and took it further. In GlobalPost: Journalism in the Cloud she pondered whether journalism might be moving away from the dedicated news organization model and moving toward an on-demand service model, similar to Amazon’s EC2 service for on-demand computer processing power. Williams explained:

“EC2 isn’t storage. It’s compute cycles, the raw power of a server as it does what computer programs do: serve Web pages, generate maps, whatever. You use EC2 as an insurance policy. Instead of buying powerful servers just in case you get a ton of traffic or new users one day, EC2 lets you buy compute cycles like you buy electricity: a lot when you need it, a little when you don’t. Services like these are generally called cloud computing because when you draw a diagram of your nifty new system, you’ll represent these third party services as a cloud — opaque, because you don’t care what’s in them, just that you get reliable utility from servers and storage that are ‘in the cloud.’

“I think sites like GlobalPost, Spot.us and many others I could name are the first inklings of ‘journalism in the cloud.’ Just as many tech outfits have figured out that it’s too expensive to have too many fixed assets, many news outlets are faced with the fact that they can’t support the same number of foreign correspondents or beat reporters. The fundamental experiment that these sites are running, each with their own protocol, is this: How can we make journalism happen where it’s needed, when it’s needed, and then redeploy elsewhere when things change?”

I asked Williams whether this would mean that reporters would have to move around a lot. She replied: “Not necessarily. A reporter could stay in the same location. If it worked, though, it would mean they’d report on more different subjects. I think what’s dying are beats, because beats are expensive.”

I find this concept intriguing: a cadre of general assignment reporters, ready to work on whatever needed doing. This wouldn’t necessarily replace what traditional news organizations do, especially on a day-to-day local level — but it could be an interesting complement to traditional news organizations. And, in places where news organizations are dying, it would be better than no reporting at all.

But I’m not sure that this model would spell the end of beats…

I agree with Williams that this cloud-journalism model probably would best support general assignment reporting. However, you don’t need to be geographically close to cover many beats. For instance, I’ve covered energy, business, and technology issues for many years, and much (if not most) of that coverage can be done by remote. There might be room within cloud journalism networks for some beat-style specialization.

What this model probably would not support well would be daily coverage of local beats — local government, schools, environment, politics, etc. But that’s not to say that enterprising cloud journalists couldn’t convince network editors that some local stories deserve wider exposure, either on their own or as a part of a larger story.

One obstacle this kind of journalism model would face, however, is the low stature accorded to general assignment reporting in the existing culture of journalism.

GA reporting is generally viewed as a humble starting point for gaining basic journalism experience. Journalists generally aspire to graduate as soon as possible into beat, feature, enterprise or columnist/commentary jobs. However, this can create the same problem as with over-specialization of medicine: the world needs, and can support, far more general practitioners than cardiologists. While both kinds of doctors are needed, there’s a far greater demand for available generalists. Being an excellent general practitioner is a valuable and admirable skill in its own right. But medical education and professional culture tends to elevate and reward specialization more.

If news professionals could collectively change this mindset and view GA reporting as a valid continuous career path, other sorts of business models might become feasible. The kind of journalism communities value isn’t necessarily what journalists consider more prestigious — but ultimately, whose opinion counts more when it comes to keeping people informed and engaged?

Also, a cloud approach to managing journalism resources wouldn’t necessarily reduce journalists to contingent day-laborer status, lining up daily to see if they get picked to work. It’s possible there might be a core staff or retainer arrangement to maintain a baseload capacity, with the ability to call in more reporters or increase hours as needed.

In fact, this model is already being tried in some news venues. Fellow Tidbits contributor Michelle Ferrier explains:

“This is a similar idea to what I do on MyTopiaCafe.com. We have a core set of ‘hub guides’ — GA-type writers who find, pitch, write, photograph, and sometimes video stories. They get a weekly stipend (a guaranteed paycheck for a certain number of stories that may be geographic or topical). I also maintain a cadre of traditional correspondents who get paid per piece. As budget allows or as needs change, I can ramp up one or both of the groups to fill the reporting needs — or ratchet back to base levels for maintenance. Seems to have worked for nearly a year and a half.

Who will pay? Amazon knows that if its EC2 servers remain idle, they’re losing money. So Amazon works to market this service to a variety of clients. It doesn’t care much who runs which kinds of processes on its servers, as long as they pay for it and those servers stay fairly busy. Apply that ethic to cloud journalism and you could have a situation where various kinds of organizations could buy reporting capacity to make sure the stories or communities that matter to them get covered — whether that’s a town, a government agency, a business trend, legislation, a water quality issue, or sports. In other words, it wouldn’t just be up to news organizations to make sure journalists can make a living. Ensuring quality reporting (not just propaganda) in this situation might be challenging, but it probably could be managed.

…These ideas are rough, but I find them provocative. GlobalPost’s experience will definitely offer some lessons on this front.

What do you think of the possibilities for cloud journalism? Please comment below.

(NOTE: I originally published this article on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits blog.)

Yeah, so what? Why should journalists and news organizations care about these tools? How can this help their communities, journalism, and (most critical right now) business opportunities? What’s in it for journos and news brands?

That’s what Meabh Ritchie, a reporter for the U.K. Press Gazette asked me to clarify. She’s writing a story on this, and I’ll link to it when it’s up in February 2009. The short answer is: This stuff is effective and (more importantly) FUN! — for journalists and news audiences.

But here’s the full version of my answer…

…By the way, the tools I demoed for the News21 educators were Gigapan, ManyEyes, Silobreaker, and the interactive/realtime graphics at Envirovote. UNC professor Don Wittekind demoed Flash games and calculators. Also, multimedia journalist and 10000 Words blogger Mark Luckie demoed Mapbuilder, Dipity, Intersquash, and Widgetbox.

Generally, I think the value of using interactive visual tools in sharing news, info, and journalism is that people don’t just think in words — so words often aren’t always the only or best way to tell a story. Furthermore, words, static graphics, and linear multimedia (audio or video that just plays) are almost NEVER the best way to encourage people to explore a story, so they can discover their own points of relevance and interest.

In short, interactive visual tools make news and info far more personal, compelling, and fun. And right now, news definitely could use a whole lot more fun — in its creation, content, and experience.

…Don’t kid yourself: There are valid, important reasons why Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are kicking butt as news sources while newspapers are declining and dying. People need to laugh. Also, fun and humor are elegant, effective ways to layer context and insight onto information — and to just give people enough motivation to get interested and stay “tuned in.” The “eat your veggies” approach so common in the mainstream journalism mindset definitely has problems.

Oh, and speaking of interactive visual stuff, did you see Stephen Colbert’s Green Screen Challenge? Here’s the winning entry:

But I digress…

Used well, interactive visualizations inherently have far more potential to engage and involve people than passive “you just read/watch/listen to us” media. Plus, they tend to get people’s imagination and pattern-recognition abilities cranking.

Playing with visualization tools (especially applying them to data you think might yield a story) can help you find stories or angles. I regularly use ManyEyes to help me spot patterns or anomalies, particularly with data related to energy or the environment.

On the business side for ad-supported sites (or other sites where success is measured at least partly by traffic), visualization tools applied to news tend to “go viral,” attracting tons of inbound links, which boosts search visibility. Unlike most kinds of news content, this traffic tends to build, not decline, over time. This content also can be widgetized or made embeddable, providing a powerful teaser that gets people interested in your stories and then steers them back to your site for full coverage — or that at least promotes your news brand.

Finally, many great interactive visualization tools are free and easy to learn and use. They all take practice and have their quirks, but this stuff is not rocket science. You don’t need a programmer or even much money or time to make this work. Even an independent journalist working alone can make good use of them.

“What’s the real difference between a blog and web site? Can I have a link to my favorite sites, favorite videos, host a forum, etc. on my blog, or am I better off just building a Web site…and maybe having a blog on that. Likely I will probably only do one or the other.”

My take on this is that the difference between blogs and web sites is steadily vanishing. These channels are definitely converging.

In fact, they started out converged. After all, a blog is nothing more than a kind of web site supported by a content management system that provides a useful collection of features: Comments, a permalink for each post, categories, tags, a home page where the latest content automatically appears on top and earlier stuff scrolls down, etc. (If you thought a blog was something else, see: What’s a Blog? Bag the Stereotypes)

So what’s someone who’s just starting out online with a blog or site to do?…

Keep in mind that blogging is far more versatile than it used to be. You can embed video or audio or photo galleries in your posts, use the blog as a base for a podcast, integrate widgets or interactive tools, and have separate static pages for things like your bio. It’s not just text anymore.

However, today’s “blogging tools” generally can do so much more than mere blogging. For instance, WordPress, which started out as an open-source blogging platform, has grown to become a full-fledged content management system. Blogging is just one part of what you can do with WordPress. You also can integrate static pages, forums tools, media libraries, and virtually anything else you’d want to have on a “web site.”

So my answer to Dan is: If you think you’ll want to do more than blog, choose a platform that will let you expand. If you think you’ll want things like a forum, video library, or wiki, you’re probably better off building a site in on a more full-featured platform like WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type, or Expression Engine. Then you can start with a blog and grow from there.

In contrast, if you’re pretty damn sure you’ll never ever want to do anything more with your site than blog, then you’re probably fine with a hosted blogging service like Typepad. It’s technically simpler, the cost is low, and you don’t have to update your software.

If you’re not sure, then I recommend either starting with a full-featured CMS and just use it for blogging at first. That gives you room to grow later.

The important thing is: Your site should have its own domain. Don’t settle for a subdomain like dan.typepad.com. Having your own domain not only improves your search visibility — it also makes it more feasible to move your blog to a different platform or host if necessary. (Never fun, but sometimes necessary.) If you decide to start with a hosted blogging platform like Typepad, be sure you map your domain to it right from the start, so every page on your site bears your domain in its URL.

Also, your site should definitely include a blog, even if it’s not limited to that. And your blog probably should appear on your site’s home page. Why? Search engines love blogs. They really, really, love blogs. And if you’re in the media business, you want search engines to love you — because like it or not they have become the arbiter of your career.

Think of your blog (or the blog portion of your site) as Media Career Insurance. If you use it right, it can allow opportunities to keep finding you, regardless of what happens with your current job or employer.

I asked these students whether they read blogs. As is common, the vast majority said no. But, as with Web users of all types, it’s likely that in fact they do read blogs far more often than they think. That’s because nearly all Web users frequently encounter blogs through search engine results. But they may not realize that, since many weblogs don’t call themselves (or resemble) blogs. In fact, they often look just like any other Web site — except that they happen to be supported by a blogging platform on the back end.

Why should young journalists care about this? Because in a professional environment where staying findable equals sustained opportunity and flexibility, search engines are a key arbiter of your career. The more findable and linkable you are, the more search engines will reward you.

…And search engines really, really love blogs…

Journalists at any career stage who hope to keep working and stay relevant (regardless of the fortunes of any or all news organizations) should aspire to be as findable as possible. The easiest way to achieve this is to use your very own blog to build a strong, persistent personal brand.

The key to building your personal brand is to publish easily findable content on your own site — not just via your employer’s site, nor just within a community site or group weblog. Your very own site.

Having your own blog is media career insurance. It will serve as your “home base” where you establish your personal reputation, track record, abilities, interests, and aspirations. It’s a rewarding, useful, persistent way to be professionally and personally generous. It can attract help, insight, serendipity, and opportunity. And it lets you achieve all this consistently, despite inevitable changes in your job, bosses, beat, location, or goals.

Even better, blogging tools make online publishing easy so you’ll probably publish more often.

It’s never too late to start your own blog. Still, the earlier you start, the better. Search engines (especially Google) tend to accord higher rank to sites that stick around. Thus you can end up well-positioned in search rankings simply by starting a blog and sticking with it.

You don’t even have to blog every day. Over time, even blogging as little as a few times per month can yield fairly strong search positioning.

Here are my tips for starting and running your own blog:

1. GET A GOOD DOMAIN NAME

Pick something that’s easy to spell and remember, and that preferably ends in .com, .org, or .net. Don’t make it too cute or too restrictive — but you can still have fun. For example, even though I own the domain for my last name (gahran.com), since 1998 my main blog has been Contentious.com. This was originally intended as a pun on the then-nascent term “content,” but its unintentional open-endedness has given me considerable and valuable room to explore a wide range of topics beyond media and journalism.

However, choosing your name (like HowardOwens.com) or nickname (like DigiDave.org) as your blog’s domain also can work well.

The ultimate point of your blog is to promote your personal brand, so your domain should be more about you than a particular topic or place. This gives you room to change, grow and publish what you want. Also, owning your own domain gives you the option of switching blog platforms or hosts without losing the benefit of traffic and search rank you’ve worked to build.

2. MAP YOUR DOMAIN TO YOUR SITE

This will cause every page on your site to bear your domain in its URL — which helps search visibility and page rank for your site.

Domain mapping is important if, for technical simplicity, you choose a hosted blogging platform like TypePad. There, the default is to assign your site a subdomain like myblog.typepad.com — which is less impressive to search engines. Avoid hosted blogging services that don’t allow you to map your domain to your blog.

If you have your own Web hosting account (such as with GoDaddy or DreamHost), and register your domain there, your domain will probably automatically map to your site.

Note: Domain mapping is much easier to do when you first start to blog, rather than apply retroactively to an existing blog. But retroactive mapping is better than none, if you want search visibility. Just be sure to employ 301 redirects from your old site URLs, so Google will know you really just moved your site, it’s not a new or different site.

3. STICK WITH YOUR DOMAIN

Time and continuity work in your favor with search engines. The longer you blog at the same domain, the higher you will probably rank. If you have an established domain that gets search visibility, it’s probably best to stick with it even if your focus changes over time. Resist the temptation to rebrand yourself with a new domain, or to spin off special-purpose blogs under separate domains. This dilutes your “Google Juice.” (See now why it’s best to choose a domain name that gives you room to evolve?)

4. DON’T WORK FOR ANYONE WHO WON’T LET YOU KEEP YOUR OWN BLOG

Ever. It’s just not worth it. Consider maintaining your own blog a basic right of being in the media business. The danger with agreeing not to blog is that you sacrifice the findability that you’ve worked to build — and that you will need more than ever if or when your current job ends.

It’s kind of like this: What if you have your own personal IRA for retirement. You’ve been paying into it for years, it’s building up. You get offered a shiny new job and they tell you, “If you want to work for us, you have to cash in your IRA. No, we won’t reimburse you for penalty fees. Don’t worry, we have a great 401-K plan. The catch in, if your job here ever ends, you don’t get to keep any of the money from that 401 K.”

Bad deal.

That said, it is fine to negotiate with your employer about reasonable concessions regarding your blog, such as no blogging on your site about workplace issues. But outright blogging prohibitions should be a flat dealbreaker.

Most media employers do back down on flat blogging prohibitions and negotiate compromises if challenged. So I strongly recommend that you push back and negotiate. No employer should be able to dictate your online identity. They don’t own who you are.

5. JOIN THE CONVERSATION, AND LINK BACK TO YOURSELF

For many reasons, online conversation ultimately makes you more findable. And if all the conversation channels you use point back to your blog, Google will love your blog more. That’s because inbound links from other sites (even in comments you make) are a key ingredient of Google Juice.

So when you comment on other blogs (and you should), always link back to your blog’s home page. Put your blog’s URL in your e-mail signature line. Include it in your social media service profiles, plus anywhere else you can think of. Don’t worry, this isn’t pushy; it’s normal. It’s even expected as a matter of courtesy and transparency.

6. KEEP YOUR OWN BLOG GOING, EVEN IF YOU ALSO BLOG ELSEWHERE

For instance, I have always blogged on Contentious.com even though I edit Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits blog and probably post there more frequently. That’s because Contentious.com is the core of my personal brand. I have collected a valuable community there.

Furthermore, Contentious.com currently boasts a Google page rank of seven (out of a possible 10). By comparison, the main Tidbits page currently ranks at six, while the Poynter Online home page ranks at seven.

…How are you using your blog to build your personal brand? Has it helped you through career transitions (such as from journalism to academia, or from reporter to editor, or from employed to self-employed)? What tips would you offer? And if you still don’t have your own blog, why not? Please comment below.

(NOTE: I originally published this on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits on Sept. 16, 2008. See the comments there.)

I really used to hate stereograms.

When they became popular in the early 1990s, they often reduced me to serious frustration and headaches. I would stare at them — glare at them, really — trying to will their embedded 3D images to leap out. Everyone else seemed to enjoy these hidden illusions with ease. But my eyes and brain stubbornly refused to do the trick.

Then one day, I realized that I was looking at a dolphin. I just glanced at the cover of a book of stereogram art, and there it was. I was delighted to discover that the image wasn’t “leaping out” at me — rather, I was “seeing into” it. I wasn’t even sure how I’d started to see the hidden picture. All of the sudden, and quietly, it just worked.

Years later, I’ve come to realize that whenever I’ve identified a key mission or purpose I should pursue, it’s emerged (very much like that dolphin) from the background of the world around me. I get a sense that some vision is waiting to be seen, and I prepare my mind to be open to it. Then eventually I see it, and it feels like I always should have seen it.

In contrast, whenever I’ve tried the top-down, primarily rational (rather than intuitive) approach to choosing a course in life, I usually end up not really wanting what I’ve been working for, or liking what I’ve done — which is frustrating and demoralizing on many levels.

I’ve been quiet on this blog lately, mostly because I’ve been spending more time conversing, research, reading, and journaling. To be honest, I’ve been searching for purpose. For a couple of years now — although I’ve been doing a lot of interesting work, meeting a lot of interesting people, and learning a lot of interesting things — privately I’ve been feeling like I’ve been flailing around, seeking direction and purpose.

Finally, I feel like the picture is starting to emerge. Here is the outline so far…

• Relevance: I think I can help foster a greater practical understanding of relevance — connecting the dots between information and people. This could, in turn, help people create automated tools that can spot and convey relevance. Imagine a “relevance engine” that could scan a seemingly random group of news stories or datasets and indicate not just which ones are probably most relevant to you, but explain how each is relevant.
• Helping people discover and share useful information. On this front, I think I could be most immediately useful by helping to free professional and amateur journalists from the constraints of traditional news organizations (most of which probably won’t be around much longer, and which have also succumbed to a toxic culture that directly undermines journalism and communities). Journalists have developed very useful skills, and I don’t want that value to be lost as this particular corporate house of cards collapses.
• Energy. My work and interests keep bringing me back to energy (electricity and fuel). It truly makes almost every other good in the world possible. Plus, the fragility, unevenness, and difficulties of how energy is produced, transported, and used around the world lie at the root of many thorny problems (war, poverty, drinking water, medical care, climate change, etc.). I want to directly support the development of more diverse, less destructive, and less centralized energy sources around the world — as well as more efficient ways to use that energy.

…That’s what I’ve gleaned so far from the patterns in the world around me and how they’re resonating in me. I have a sense that there’s a deeper purpose that unifies these three missions — but I can’t quite articulate that yet. Still, I do believe it’s important to keep my personal focus on practicality, not theory — on helping people in the real world. And I am passionate about all these missions.

I’m curious what Contentious.com readers think of this emerging outline for the next big phase of my life and career — as well as my intuitive process for choosing direction.

How do you figure out what you should be doing in life? Are you rational about it, intuitive, or both? I’d love to hear how other people wrestle with this kind of quest — or if it’s even a conscious effort you make.