The College of Mark.
In starting this blog, I had a couple things I wanted to talk about for a long time and get people's reactions. After a couple posts, I'm starting to think about what my long term goals are, what interests me, and what may be of some value to others.
My goal in social media has always been two-fold: to become more knowledgeable about different topics I'd otherwise never learn about, and to share what I know with other people. In figuring out how best to accomplish these two goals, I started to think about a model with which I'm both familiar and comfortable: the college course.
A lecturer or instructor may teach several courses in addition to research activities: each course can be taken by itself and provides an ongoing in-depth discussion about a specific topic. In addition, the instructor may take on other subjects that he may not know all that much about in hopes of learning more and coming up with new insights about the topic.
Introducing Blog "Tracks"
So in the same respect, I'll be structuring what I write here into different "courses" or "tracks:" I started one track already, about the role of Friendship in digital media. In addition to Friendship, I'll talk about other interesting aspects of the "social" in social media, especially from a moral or ethical standpoint.
A second track I'll be introducing later tonight or tomorrow will go into basic argumentation: what makes a sound argument? How do you present a convincing argument? How do you use logic without sound a like a jerk?
As time goes by, I'll be introducing other tracks about other subjects, all with focuses that are directly applicable to not only social media, but to the rest of the world, as well. These tracks will go on for at least a few months, and will probably phase out as other tracks come in.
Office Hours
In keeping with the whole college course motif, I'll also be devoting Friday to what I call "office hours," which is essentially reader's request. Shoot me an email, @ me on Twitter, or otherwise let me know what you want to talk about on Friday, and I'll try to give my thoughts on it as best as possible. As I don't have too big of a readership right now, I'll be using that time to talk about subjects interesting to me that don't necessarily fit into a running track.
Wrapping Up
So what do you think? Good idea? Terrible idea? Leave a comment here, on FriendFeed, Twitter, or via email.
Main photo credit: Brandon Daniel Greer (Flickr)
