Blogging as a Relationship Building Tool

I have seen the evolution of personal home pages of late 90's evolving into the modern day blogs on the internet. While much is talked about the blog, the part which I find very interesting is the ability for the blog to help us build relationships with others online. Blogs are a great networking tool and a relationship building tool online. Blogs can be mightier than resumes, CVs, or other forms of expressing your thoughts, opinions, calliber. Yes, it is a big commitment, and to be honest it took me well over a year to get around to starting with my own blog, but, I do feel that writing this blog, gives me immense outlet to express myself to the world and get to know folks who I otherwise would not be able to touch.

If you study the blogs as a relationship development tool, you will start interacting with the bloggers through comments, sharing your thoughts, perhaps even debating with them on certain subjects through your comments. As you engage in this online "public" discussion with them through your comments, you will start to become noticed by them, and eventually be part of their online "network" or relationship. After all, if you look at the parallel of relationship building in the old physical world, many great relationships started at the piazza's and college campuses or the modern day starbucks cafes discussing topics of sports, politics, or career. If one can apply the same priniciples to the modern day world of blogs, effectively, then you will develop deep professional relationships with folks around the world -- that is the vision of siliconindia commiunity for example. So, next time you are getting around to thinking about how to turbo charge your career or get attention from VCs or attract entrepreneurs or get a job, think about how you can use the Blog as a networking tool allowing you to connect to this vast community out there...