Why I Blog

11JulJuly 11, 2021

Christine Bernat, Author

I’ve had a blog for about 8 years now. It started because of a book I wrote. When my father was dying of cancer in 2004, he wanted me to self-publish a book he had written in the 90’s on Education. I agreed because I wanted to grant him his final wish. But during the process of preparing the book for publication , I decided I really enjoyed the content and began to add information to it. This turned out to be an 8-year project, but because I was mostly a stay-at-home mom at the time, it gave me something to do in my spare time.

I did get the book published in 2012 (for sale on this website). I soon learned, however, that publishers don’t spend much time or money marketing books anymore. They expect the writer to do it. Thus, came my venture into blogging. I dug into learning about the blogging process and this is what I found out…

Blogging, social media and other forms of Internet expression are truly an entirely new ball game. In the past, people relied on others to get their thoughts across to the public. People may produce a book/article/even a product and then they would pass this on to others to market it for them. This usually meant that someone else edits it/revises it/redesigns it, etc. to match their standards and the standards to which their customer base would expect. But this is no longer the case. People, as in YOU, can now get your message across directly to the public, and you are only limited by the effectiveness of your message. Do people want to read/view/hear it? Do you have something that is compelling enough to grab their attention enough to take them away from the other millions of Internet options that are vying for their time?

I learned that Blogging is often referred to as “cheese cubing”. When you go to the grocery store, and they want to sell you cheese, they give you a toothpick in a cube of the cheese to taste. Blogs are really the same thing. You are giving your audience a “taste” of the message on your website, whether it is excerpts from a book your wrote, or a clip of a video you produced, or any other self-produced content. Blogs are intended to be short snips of content that is sent out on a regular basis that gives the audience a good taste of what the website is about.

So, with these ideas in mind, I set out to create my blog. Now, what I often do when I create a blog post is that I look to actual events in my life that lend themselves to my message of “Learn Through Life.” Teachers might refer to these events as “teachable moments.” From these events, I tie them to the adult and computer learning principles that I outline in my book. I try to start with the experience or “story” that occurred because stories are the most compelling and best way to convey a message. But you cannot learn from a story per say unless it is tied to a concept or some form of knowledge. Otherwise, it’s just a good story. So, this is how I create my blog posts, and I encourage everyone to try it. Take information that is your passion and then break it down into small chunks/cubes to feed to people and inform them on a regular basis. But always remember that others must find the information useful enough to give their time and energy to consume. These are just basic learning theory principles. Adults want to learn what is most important for their own goals and objectives, and you have to direct your message to them in that way. Good luck.