Linkball for a Sunday Night [en]

[fr] Un peu de lecture pour dimanche soir.

Boundaries and Outsourcing Our Brains [en]

[fr] Réflexion sur le fait que notre utilisation de la technologie consiste à déléguer certaines fonctions cérébrales (calcul, mais aussi stockage/mémoire), et sur la nécessité de chercher un équilibre dans notre connectivité en posant des limites, sans pour autant fuir dans la déconnexion complète.

I went to a lovely dinner party the other night, put together by the no-less-lovely Cathy Brooks of DoAT. At some point of the evening, we shared our thoughts on what we were seeing that qualified as “most disruptive”. Where are things going, according to the diners?

I have to admit I drew a bit of a blank in the “disruptive” department — I’m trying to quieten down these days. However, there are two things I see going on that seem important to me.

The first is that we’re outsourcing our brains. It’s an evidence — a huge amount of what computing does for us is that. The internet, mobile phones, better interfaces — all that accelerates and facilitates the process.

We don’t just use machines to outsource long complicated mathematical calculations anymore. We use them to decide where to eat. To remember what we need to do tomorrow. To know who acted in which movie. Where we met people, and when. Who they are and what they do. What we did when and where.

We’re using machines to remember stuff. Does it scare you? It doesn’t scare me that much, to be honest, because as long as that information is almost instantly available to us, does it make a big difference if it was stored in our brains or elsewhere? Have you read those SF books (like Alastair Reynolds‘s Revelation Space series — I love his stories) where humans have implants that connect them permanently to a kind of “cloud” or “network”? I mean, it’s just what we have now, with a better interface. I think we’re getting there.

We’ve been doing this with people forever. When you have a close relationship with somebody, you outsource (or delegate) some of your cognitive processes or data storage to them. I can’t remember if I read about this in Blink or The Tipping Point, but it was Malcolm Gladwell who introduced me to the idea.

In a couple, somebody is often in charge of the schedule. Or of cooking. Or of taking initiative for the holidays. Or of keeping up with movies to see. Breaking up (or losing that important other in any way) is traumatizing also because of the “data loss”. It’s a slightly utilitarian and mechanical view of relationships, of course, but it’s onto something.

The feeling of disconnect we have when away from technology (almost like a missing limb) has some kinship with the feeling of lack of access when we’re aware from our external data storage humans. “Oh, if only Andy were here, I’d just ask him X/he’d know what to do.”

Right, enough of confusing humans with machines.

The second thing that’s been on the top of my mind for the last couple of years is the question of boundaries. In an always-connected world, providing better and better interfaces with all the data out there and the spaces we store it in (machine or human), we are forced to learn boundaries. Boundaries with humans, especially when there are too many of them, and boundaries with technology.

For many of us, technology is closely linked to work, and learning to be offline is also learning to disconnect from work. Should we learn to be offline? Is it something we need? It seems obvious to us today, but I’m not sure it will be seen as that important in 10-20 years.

Do we think it’s important to spend days without electricity? Without cars (yes, but once a year)? Without cooking food? Without a roof over our head? Without newspapers or books? It’s different, you’ll say. Not that different — just that those are technologies that were born before us, and we don’t question them as much as those that appear during our adult lifetime.

Disconnecting is a radical way of avoiding the issue of having to set boundaries with technology and people. But we do not owe it to people to be available when they try to reach us. In most of our lines of work, nobody is going to die if we don’t check our e-mail. We can learn to say no, to not respond to certain requests, to not pick up the phone.

Of course we need disconnection at times. E-mail sabbaticals should become an acceptable thing in companies. For that, we need more people who have the guts to do it (responsibly of course). I found that spending a week offline helps reset normalcy. It’s easier to resist the temptation to check your e-mail first thing in the morning when you’ve spent a week without it. It’s easier to slow down when you’ve been offline for a week. I think it’s particularly useful to take these breaks when “online” and “work” are related. In a way, it just comes down to taking a “real” holiday. Just as needing time off work doesn’t mean we should aim to purge work from our lives, needing breaks from tech doesn’t mean we need to try and remove it from our lives.

I believe it is possible to remain connected and at the same time to preserve our personal space and time. Yes, that requires being able to say no, and set boundaries, but that’s simply healthy human behaviour.

Answering when addressed is etiquette that holds in a world where the physicality of space and time already sets boundaries for us — in the digital world, it needs to be rethought.

I remember this researcher who was interviewed in a Radiolab episode (probably “Deception“). He strived to not lie — you know, those social lies you say all the time. “Oh, sorry I can’t meet you for dinner next week, I’m too busy.” Instead, he would say things like (quoting from memory) “I’m sorry, but I’m not actually looking to pursue new friendships right now.” I think this kind of attitude requires courage and diplomacy. And I think that more and more, we’re going to have to learn it.

In a connected world, these social lies become more difficult. I might end up having to own up to the fact that yes, I’m there, at home, watching a DVD, available for my friends and family, but not for my clients. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.

So, I think we should go for balance, and boundaries, rather than rejection and disconnection.

Renault at LeWeb: Lovely Lounge and the Twizy Test Drive [en]

[fr] J'ai testé la Renault Twizy pour vous, très sympa! Vidéo bientôt, avec du français dedans 🙂

Update 14.12.2011: here’s the video, thanks so much to Charbax!

Remember last year? I fell in love with the Renault Twizy that was on display at LeWeb. Andrea had lent me his 7-14mm lens and I thought the playful electric car was a great subject.

LeWeb'10 First Day 20 - Renault Twizy

This year, we’re not just looking at a prototype. We’re looking at the real thing, and you can sign up for test drives at the Renault lounge (or try your luck dropping in). Here’s a little corner of their lounge, by the way, nice and cozy for a little sit-down before or after listening to what’s going on on the main stage.

Renault lounge at Le Web -- cozy!

And here’s the car on display:

Twizy Car at LeWeb'11.

So, I got to test drive the car this morning — thanks a lot to German for accompanying me there personally and taking the photos. (German manages blogger relations for Renault, official partner of LeWeb this year). Charbax was around too, and he shot a video of my test. It will be online soon! (Warning: mixture of French and English in the video ;-))

Twizy Test Drive 1060872.jpg

First thing, special seat-belt. In addition to the normal seat-belt, you get a second one on the other side. “So you don’t fall out,” said the kind guy helping me in. What I see first, though, having been in a couple of accidents (bumping into the car in front of me, don’t ask) is that at least with this set up I’ll get “straight” whiplash, and not the nasty twisty trauma that comes with the traditional seat-belt. But most probably, I won’t get into any accident with this lovely Twizy.

Twizy Test Drive 1060877.jpg

To start the car, press down on the brake pedal (and not the gas pedal as I embarrassingly did, yup, that’s me realizing what I’d done, below), and turn the key. You don’t hear anything, but the engine is on.

Twizy Test Drive at LeWeb

And off we go! It’s fun to drive. You can actually accelerate!

Twizy Test Drive 1060890.jpg

Twizy Test Drive 1060887.jpg

Photos are a bit blurry? That’s because I was moving fast. The guy on the left told me to slow down, oopsie 🙂

Twizy Test Drive 1060886.jpg

Already over, but I enjoyed myself!

Twizy Test Drive 1060893.jpg

Twizy Test Drive 1060895.jpg

Thanks a lot for the drive! I think that if I have a car again someday, it will look more like this one than like those I’ve had in the past.

LeWeb'11 Is Underway [en]

[fr] LeWeb, édition 2011!

I would not be doing my job if I didn’t drop you a note to tell you I’m at LeWeb. But you know that, don’t you?

The conference is well underway, and I’d like to invite you to keep up with what’s going on through the Nespresso Lounge, a collection of Twitter activity of speakers, participants, official bloggers, startups, and general chatter about , and the posts a bunch of the official bloggers are producing during the conference.

If you’re wishing you were there, pick up the live video feed and pretend you’re in Paris!

Habituation, Variety, and Intermittent Rewards [en]

[fr] Habituation, variété, récompenses aléatoires... il me manque un petit quelque chose pour lier tout ça ensemble.

Here’s another post in the “variety is the spice of life” series. My first intuition that it might make sense to vary the type of blog posts one produces to sustain reader interest didn’t actually have to do with my readings about habituation in The How of Happiness, although it was at the same moment and I then quickly put the two together.

When I initially suggested varying blog post type/topic to somebody who had a blog which was made of a series of very similar posts, I was thinking of intermittent rewards. So now, I’m wondering: how does what I’ve understood about habituation, the need to vary one’s happiness strategies, and intermittent reward reinforcement fit together?

Clearly, a system with intermittent rewards keeps your brain on high alert. Is varying one’s happiness activities also simply just keeping one’s brain alert, by providing “rewards” (the boost one gets from doing something that makes one happy) not on a completely regular schedule? Do intermittent rewards work against habituation?

I feel I’m onto something here but I can’t quite bring it all together.

We have: habituation => need for variety; vary reward schedule => increased reinforcement. Are we talking about the same thing (brain-wise, are the same phenomenons/chemicals involved) — or are these two similar things, that look similar, but are in fact two separate issues? What is the missing link here?

If you have thoughts, data, research, or case studies around this, I’m interested.

I also think there is something in this which explains why we have “phases” (go a lot to the cinema during a few months/years, then less, or read a lot, then less, take up a hobby, abandon it) and why (at least in my case) we play games for a moment, then move on to another one (I’m playing Zombie Café right now but feel the need for something new soon).

Du désengouement pour les réseaux sociaux (et tout le reste) [fr]

[en] Social media losing speed? Nope, it's just normal that after a few months or years of using a new toy intensely, many people move on. To a new, similar toy or a completely different one.

Je lis un article (parmi bien d’autres) dans lequel on réfléchit aux causes d’un certain essoufflement dans l’usage des réseaux sociaux.

Pour moi, on est à côté de la plaque avec ce genre de questions.

Ce n’est pas une problématique liée aux réseaux sociaux. Ça a à voir avec la façon dont la nouveauté nous stimule. On est sur la bonne piste avec les lamentations concernant les “effets de mode”, mais on trivialise la problématique en l’étiquetant ainsi. Parce que ce n’est pas juste que nous sommes de superficiels moutons victimes de la mode. Il s’agit de la façon dont fonctionne nos cerveaux d’animaux humains — et on n’y échappe pas.

J’ai beaucoup réfléchi récemment au lien entre la nouveauté et l’efficacité d’une méthode ou d’une stratégie. J’en ai compris l’importance capitale en lisant The How of Happiness — dans le contexte des activités qui nous rendent heureux (on sait tous que trop de routine crée l’ennui, et que le bonheur ne se trouve pas dans l’ennui, n’est-ce pas?) — mais je vois depuis ce même phénomène à l’oeuvre dans une multitude de domaines.

Voici l’exemple qui m’a marqué. L’équipe de recherche de Sonja Lyubomirsky, l’auteur du livre, avait démontré que prendre régulièrement du temps pour sentir ou exprimer de la reconnaissance rendait les gens plus heureux. Les chercheurs se sont ensuite attelés à identifier la meilleure façon de sentir ou d’exprimer cette reconnaissance.

L’expérience est assez simple. On sépare les sujets de l’expérience en deux groupes, qui prendront une demi-heure pour mettre par écrit ce pour quoi ils sont reconnaissants:

  • le premier groupe le fera chaque dimanche soir
  • le deuxième groupe chaque lundi, mercredi, vendredi.

On regarde ensuite dans quel groupe le bonheur des gens a le plus augmenté après l’expérience.

Contrairement à ce qu’on pourrait attendre, c’est la méthode du premier groupe (une seule fois par semaine) qui est la plus efficace. Mais pourquoi donc? On suppose qu’à faire l’exercice trois fois par semaine, un phénomène d’habituation intervient

L’habituation, c’est ce qui fait que même après un terrible accident ou le décès d’un être cher, on finit par retrouve le goût de vivre, une nouvelle normalité. C’est assez sain, en fin de compte. Mais ça a ses inconvénients: les changements positifs dans notre vie subissent le même sort (leur effet s’atténue assez vite avec le temps).

Mais quand on y pense, ça explique beaucoup de choses. En particulier, ça explique pourquoi quand on croit avoir trouvé la solution à un problème qui nous enquiquine, ça marche souvent au début, mais assez vite, ça ne marche plus. Si vous êtes comme moi, vous avez peut-être essayé toute une série de méthodes pour mieux vous organiser ou mieux gérer votre temps ou votre argent ou votre poids ou votre efficacité ou… A chaque fois, on croit enfin avoir trouvé “ce qui marche”, pour déchanter quelques semaines ou mois plus tard, quand on se retrouve “immunisé” contre la solution magique qu’on croyait avoir trouvée.

Sommes-nous donc condamnés à chercher “toujours une meilleure solution”, à courir derrière la nouveauté? Pas nécessairement, mais il faut avoir conscience que pour tenir sur la durée, il faut introduire de la variété. L’exemple bateau et que tout le monde connaît, c’est celui du couple. Si vous voulez que ça dure, il faut (entre autres) éviter de sombrer dans la routine. Certes, on a des habitudes, mais celles-ci peuvent évoluer au fil du temps, et on peut chercher aussi à garder de la fraîcheur à la relation en y introduisant de la nouveauté.

Pourquoi je vous raconte tout ça?

Parce que je crois que les réseaux sociaux ne font pas exception. Ce sont des outils, qui servent à ceux qui les utilisent. Pour communiquer avec certaines personnes, s’exprimer, s’informer, “être ensemble”. A un certain niveau, ils sont donc une “solution” à “quelque chose” (que je n’appellerai pas nécessairement un “problème” — mais ils jouent un rôle). Aussi, ce sont des outils que l’on utilise souvent quotidiennement ou presque. Il est normal qu’une certaine routine s’installe, une fois passée la phase de découverte, l’arrivée des gens de notre entourage, l’excitation liée à l’arrivée de nouvelles fonctionnalités.

Il est donc parfaitement normal que ces outils perdent de leur attrait à un certain point. On s’y habitue. Ils deviennent du coup moins efficaces à remplir leur rôle pour nous — même si c’est un rôle social ou d’information. On connaît déjà ça, hors ligne. On a des “phases”. Pendant un an ou deux, on va régulièrement au même bar. Puis on s’en fatigue, et on va ailleurs. Ou bien on lit un magazine religieusement, ou on regarde une émission télé, et un jour on réalise qu’on a passé à autre chose. On voit certains amis beaucoup, plus plus du tout. Ainsi va la vie.

Les choses qui durent sont une exception. Et si on regarde de près, peut-être bien que dans ces choses qui durent, il y a plus de variété qu’il n’y semble à premier abord (je pense aux feuilletons télé: leur contenu est fait pour nous stimuler constamment en nous assaillant de rebondissements, imprévus et nouveaux personnages).

Les gens se lassent de Facebook? Mais bien sûr. C’est “normal”, Facebook, maintenant. L’e-mail, c’est normal, ça n’émerveille plus personne (enfin par ici). Internet aussi, sauf pour ceux qui le découvrent. Facebook et Twitter, aussi. Les blogs, je n’en parle même pas. On s’enthousiasme pour le nouveau, le différent, et pas pour le normal. C’est ainsi que notre cerveau est conçu. On n’y échappe pas.

Les outils sociaux, nouveaux par essence lors de leur apparition, se trouvent rapidement pris dans une course effrénée aux nouvelles fonctionnalités, pour maintenir justement ce sentiment de nouveauté et de fraîcheur innovatrice — cela d’autant plus, à mon avis, que les premiers utilisateurs sont en général encore plus sensibles que la majorité à cet attrait de la nouveauté (et à la lassitude qui accompagne le connu).

A m’entendre, vous pourriez penser que je ne vois pas de problème dans notre société sur-saturée de stimulations, qui nous distribue du nouveau comme de la drogue. Alors oui, je dis que le neuf et la variété représente un attrait indéniable pour notre cerveau de mammifères, et qu’il faut l’accepter. Mais le problème avec une société qui nous en donne à manger à la petite cuillère, c’est que l’on ne développe peut-être pas suffisamment la capacité à générer de la nouveauté de nos vies nous-mêmes. On attend que la stimulation vienne de l’extérieur.

Se prendre la tête sur les raisons d’un “désengouement” pour les réseaux sociaux, c’est à mon avis l’expression d’une vision et d’une compréhension un peu réduites du monde et du fonctionnement de l’humain. Ça n’a rien à voir avec les réseaux sociaux. Ça a à voir avec les humains.

Bien sûr qu’après un pic d’enthousiasme pour quelque chose, il faut s’attendre à une baisse d’utilisation. Rien de nouveau sous le soleil, passez votre chemin!

Links in New Windows: Websites vs. Applications [en]

[fr] En 2011, c'est toujours pas bien de forcer les liens à ouvrir dans une nouvelle fenêtre. Sauf, on peut l'admettre, quand votre site est en fait une application web.

I was surprised recently to realize that in 2011, it wasn’t obvious to everybody that forcing links to open in a new window (with target="_blank") was not a good idea.

Actually, there are quite a few high-profile sites which force links to open in new windows, and I realized I actually don’t mind it that much: Twitter is one. I like that when I click on a link in Twitter, it opens in a new tab. I’ve learned that Twitter does this, and I now rely on it.

So, maybe links in new windows aren’t always a bad thing?

Here’s what I think: if your “site” is in fact an application, then it doesn’t matter much. People will learn to use the interface of your web application, and if links open in new windows, they will discover that and (hopefully) remember it. However, if your site is a real site, meaning it contains stuff that people are going to read, and that stuff might contain links to other stuff people might want to read or see, then it remains a Bad Thing.

Why is it a Bad Thing to force links to open in a new window (in your blog, for example)? Here’s the reasoning behind this.

  • Normal behavior is that links open in the same window.
  • When you force a link to open in a new window, you’re breaking that expectation — and there is no way to know, by looking at the link, that it’s going to spawn a new window.
  • Opening new windows is a user decision, not a website design decision. Windows are part of the browser, not the site.
  • A link can easily be opened in a new tab or window by holding down a modifier key before clicking on it (Cmd/Ctrl for example).
  • A link which is set to be opened in a new window cannot be opened in the same window if that’s what the reader would prefer.
  • Opening links in new windows may confuse the user (who might not notice the new window) and breaks the back button (to go back, you have to close the current window instead of hitting the back button — adding a different way to “go back”… more confusion).

Summary:

  • if your site is actually a web application, where links open is part of the application design, and forcing links to open in a new window can make sense in certain situations;
  • if your site is a “proper website” or a blog, don’t force links to open in a new window — where they open belongs to the way your reader chooses to use his browser, and not to the website design.

Bagha: One Year, Coming Up [en]

[fr] Bientôt un an sans Bagha. Retour de tristesse.

In a couple of weeks, it’ll be one whole year since Bagha died. I’m feeling sad these days. Memories of my last weeks with him. Life with my old cat, wanting to make the most of my time with him, but not knowing how short it was going to be.

I realized how close we were getting to a full year when eclau turned three early November. Eclau’s second birthday led to the first Jelly there, and the photos I took that day are some of the last ones I have of Bagha.

I did take some photos after that, actually, but hadn’t put them online. Here’s the last photo I have of Bagha, just two weeks before his death. I was actually playing about with my new camera, and imagined I had all the time in the world to shoot great photos of Bagha with it.

Bagha tucked in 1010095.jpg

You haven’t seen many “dead cat” posts here lately, because mostly, I think I’m done going through the worst of my grief. Time does heal. So do tears and pain, actually. That was a new idea for me — that feeling pain was part of the healing process. Writing about what I was going through helped, too.

This summer, I realized I was slowly starting to be ready for another cat. Or cats, actually — I want two. During my latest trip to India, I got to hang out with a couple of Indian cats (Ebony and Cookie), and remembered how much I missed feline presence. I miss having a cat. I want to have a cat or cats. The timing isn’t good though, because with six weeks in India coming up, I’m going to wait until my return (this is something I’ve had planned for a long time now: cats after India).

So anyway, not so much to write about. I’ve been settling well in my catless life.

But right now, it’s coming back. I’m leaving for LeWeb tomorrow — it was my last trip away before Bagha died. Christmas is coming up. My friends and I were cooking Christmas biscuits when Bagha had his heart attack. My last interaction with him, before the attack, was to invite him over to lap up a broken egg from under the table. Then he went back to my room to resume his nap on the bed.

I miss him more now than I have these last months.

Christmas was a blur. Bagha died on the 19th, and I was beside myself with grief during those days where I’m usually winding down for the end-of-year celebrations, preparing presents, looking forward to spending some time with my family. Christmas approaching, and my departure for India just after that — they remind me of how horribly sad I was at that time.

I wish I could go back a year and have my last weeks with Bagha again.

These days, like last year at the same time of the year, I feel I have pretty much managed to get back on my feet and regain some balance (some days better than other) after what has been a pretty difficult year. When I lift my head up these days and breathe this new air, I remember that last time I felt like this, and the air was cold and the nights were dark, Bagha was here with me.

I miss him.

Stuff to Read and Watch [en]

[fr] De la lecture... encore.

Another of these “linkball” posts. Maybe there’s a better way to do this (hell, there are heaps of better way to do this; whole startups exist just to do this; but I’m going old-school). Doesn’t really matter, does it?

Doctor 2.0? Meet Jay Parkinson. And listen to his TEDx talk.

Measuring a Blog's Success: Visitors and Comments Don't Cut It [en]

[fr] Un blog, c'est un investissement à long terme. Six mois, un an au moins sans se poser de questions, avant d'essayer de voir si "ça marche" ou pas. Et ne mesurez pas son succès aux visiteurs et aux commentaires. Plutôt, trouvez un moyen plus qualitatif de mesurer les bénéfices que vous en retirez, en vous basant sur la raison pour laquelle vous tenez ce blog.

Interestingly, a large part of my work right now seems to revolved around blogging. I’m happy about that. I’ve been blogging for over 10 years now, and went I became self-employed mid-2006 the first “title” I used was “blogging consultant”. Because back then, it was about blogs (and maybe wikis, and maybe social software, but not “social media”).

Anyway, I digress.

What I want to point out is that if you start a blog, or your company starts a blog, it’s important to have realistic expectations about the kind of benefits you’ll reap, and when, and how to measure them.

Even in 2011, too many people imagine that if you’re doing a good job with your blog, it will translate into thousands of visits per day and dozens of comments within a few weeks.

No way.

Those blogs with thousands of visits per day and dozens of comments are edge-cases, and have probably been at it for longer than you have.

Blogs and comments are actually not a good way of measuring the success of a blog. Honestly, if your blog has a few hundred readers a day and you get a comment now and again, you’re doing fine.

To measure the success of your blog, you need to think back to the reason you’re doing it. What do you want to get out of it? Chances are that “having as many people as possible visit it” is not the reason you’re doing it.

Maybe you want to change the perception people have of you. Maybe you want to showcase certain things you’re doing. Maybe you want to attract a certain type of person — reader, writer, or contributor. Maybe it’s the “marketing budget” for your business. Maybe you want to share a passion. Maybe you want an outlet to express yourself.

There are many reasons to want a blog. And most of them are perfectly valid (one that’s not, most of the time: make money with it).

But don’t go around measuring readers and comments to judge your success just because they’re convenient numbers.

Maybe what you need to do is create a scrapbook of all the things people spontaneously say about your blog, online or off. Maybe you need to make a list of events or situations where your blog was an ice-breaker or opened doors for you.

That seems to make way more sense than counting visits and comments. I mean, if those are so important to make somebody happy, they can be gamed.

Blogging takes time. It takes time because it takes time to think, write, link, tag, categorize, illustrate, title, proof, and publish. It takes time to be creative, and if your ambition for your blog is to be more than a collection of breaking news, hot topics and catchy headlines, blogging is a creative job.

But blogging also takes time because it’s a long-term strategy. When blogging started being hot, there were these numbers flying around, telling us that the average blog on the web was 3 months old and had 3 articles (or something like that). People started blogging, and abandoned their blogs very quickly.

When starting a blog, I wouldn’t worry about if it’s working or not before at least six months or a year. People are in such a hurry nowadays. All this hype about real-time, the internet being a place of unprecedented speed, the acceleration of innovation, not to say the “overnight successes” we keep hearing about but which languished in obscurity for ages before coming to the light. And even if there are real “overnight sensations”, they are, as I said above, edge cases.

And your blog will not be an edge case.

Your blog can work fine and do its job, but it will not be an edge case.

Unless your blog is your product — and in this case you’re clearly in the media business, and not using your blog as a communication tool — it is not to be looked at as a service or product people are going to use everyday and flock to. Instead, it’s a collection of valuable, long-lasting, well-indexed information. It’s the expression of something. It colours who you are.

And that takes time — not just the time of labour, but the days and months flying by in the calendar, so that value can accumulate, and become valuable.

Let me sum up this long rambling post in a few points:

  • blogging is a long-term strategy: it will take many months or even years for you to see what benefits it’s actually bringing you
  • don’t obsess on visitors and comments; instead, focus on what is said about your blog, and the opportunities it brings, in terms of contacts, open doors, favorable dispositions (qualitative measurement rather than quantitative)