Example of using blogs to share a more "human side" of ourselves to colleagues

This was an early post of mine, about my dog. In blogging something as personal and mundane as the name of my dog, I was trying to show how blogging could be used as a tool for social networking and expanding the readers' learning capacity (by introducing them to books in the library collection). Effectively, what I did was to link keywords in my blog post to catalogue entries in the library OPAC.

I also discovered that people who googled for "schnauzer" also visited my blog. From the comments (like this one), my colleagues and I were able to share and discuss something that we normally wouldn't have an opportunity to talk about in a work-setting:

Max, the Mini Schnauzer: Blogs as tools for Social Networking and Expanding Learning Capacity
While thinking of a name for our dog, my wife and I surprisingly came up with the same name, but for different reasons. I was thinking of Maximus, the Gladiator [NLBLink 7821448/ NLBLink 10127342] played by Russell Crowe. My wife too, came up with the name, Max. But she was really thinking about main character in the cartoon series "The Transformers" [NLBLink 11795414], Optimus Prime, except that she mistakenly thought the heroic robot was called "Maximus Prime".

Click on this Technorati Tag (Schnauzer) to read similar posts "tagged" by other bloggers (think of "tags" as Subject Headings to link related posts).

Example of using blogs to express opinions that otherwise might not be heard

[I'm using personal examples as I blog about them. If you discover similar ones, feel free to leave them as comments]

In this example, I came across two articles where I felt was grossly inaccurate. While the originating site allowed feedback to be submitted, I wasn't sure if they would publish my comments so my blog allowed me to post my views and share with others. You can also see from the post how others post their reactions in my blog, thus giving a more balanced picture to the original post.

I also deliberately chose to use the same article title for my blog post, so that when someone googles it, my blog post might be picked up with the originating articles:

Brave New Singapore?
Learnt from Loy's blog (From a Singapore Angle, 7 Jan 06) about a two-part series commenting on "the lack of liberty in Singapore" ...

Personally, I think expressing one's opinions & reactions in one's own blog is a more mature position to take, as opposed to flaming someone in their articles or posts. :)

Example of information sharing & exchange: Bad experience with fridge

Here's a personal example of how consumers can use blogs to voice their frustration/ opinions over certain products or services:

Ariston Fridges
So I'm frustrated from the entire chain of events. Could Ariston have prevented it? I don't know. Maybe a better hinge design. Maybe some Ariston employee will do a Google or Technorati and find my blog piece. Maybe they will do something about the design.

But they sure won't hear it from me direct via their formal feedback channel (if any). Why should I when I'm not going to try my luck with another Ariston fridge again, no matter how good it looks.

This was a real example that happened to me and my wife -- our fridge went kaput and we had a series of negative experiences as a result. I decided to blog about it because the frustration was very real.

How would blogging about it help?
Well the fridge didn't recover by itself. I doubt if Ariston will replace my fridge for free just because I blogged about it. But it sure helped me ease some sense of frustration, and I'm certainly sharing information to people who care to read it. Sure it's full of bias and presents only my side of the story. But that's what "word of mouth" is about, isn't it?

If Ariston had employees who know how to seek out blogs that mention it's products and services, then they might be able to do something about it. They might even want to contact me to try and convert me back to a customer.

And consider this -- if you, the consumer, was considering buying a fridge, would you consider buying the same model that I had? What thoughts went through you as you read the post?

Example of information sharing & exchange: Pair of monkeys

Here's one personal example of using blogs and online tools like Flickr.com for information exchange and sharing among individuals:

Pair of monkeys spotted at Yishun Park
My wife and I visited Yishun Park today and we spotted a pair of wild monkeys in a tree. I happened to have my digital camera along and snapped a few pictures...

[click on image to see more]

How's this useful?

• For one, I don't have to email the pictures to my friend that I had in mind. He subscribes to my blog (though I dropped him an email just in case).
• He might pass the word around to other people in nature groups, and they could add comments to my blog post (it might turn out to be 'public education' of sorts)
• If we wanted to, we could use tools like
Technorati Tags and adopt a common tag when blogging about the same topic.