RE: "New Media"

[mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com]

On the topic of getting people to review docs via some 
technological path or another, Greg Holmes 
[mailto:greg -dot- holmes -at- gmail -dot- com] tried:

> I tried "post to a URL for review" maybe five years ago, I
> think (no blog commenting facility, of course).  People just
> didn't "get" it.  They wouldn't get in the habit of going to
> look, and if I had to hound them by email, it wasn't really
> much of an improvement.
> 
> There's something about the:
> 
> * immediacy of email, and
> * persistence of email - it just sits there in your Inbox until
>   you deal with it
> 
> that I haven't been able to beat yet.  Maybe the blog
> method would work better, or maybe in a tech company
> (or *young* company) staffed with blog aficionados ...

I'm not a real blog aficionado -- as somebody else described, 
I read what I'm pointed to, and maybe I'll get hooked 
and read some more in somebody's blog...spend a half hour 
or three, reading whatever else they (or their readers) 
had to say.  But then I stop for supper and I don't go 
back. 

Even a person who IS a real blog aficionado will keep 
going back to a blog because they are attracted or 
rewarded by the content, not the fact that it's a blog, 
per se.

So, there's the rub. Neither I nor a blogging aficionado 
is going to eagerly keep returning to a blog about 
reviewing some tech-writer's latest document. If I'm a 
subject-matter expert, the "lay" version is boring to me.
I'm far ahead, in architecting and coding the product for 
upcoming versions. "Whatsa behind me, isa _not_ important!" 

If I've got a review copy in front of me, and a deadline 
to bring comments to a meeting, or whatever, I'll maybe 
buckle down and do the dirty job.... although, if I'm like 
too many SMEs, I'll expend far too much time and effort 
on commas and style, and not enough on spotting technical 
errors or suggesting substantive inprovements.  And that 
won't change one whit, if the format happens to be bloggish.

Actually, if I'm most reviewers, I'll prefer a red pen and 
hard copy.

Am I wrong, or am I wrong?   :-)

Kevin (who doesn't even have a personal web site, yet, let alone a blog)

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