The BPS blog provides us with an overview of research which seems to show that people prefer information, not just opinion, when they are receiving advice. Obviously one mustn’t over-generalise, but this does seem to say that we should be careful when we find ourselves giving advice:

Individuals who are advising decision-makers should at the very least be careful to provide information along with their recommendations.

Blogging in particular encourages us to share our opinions and to explore ideas. Sometimes this teeters over into advice-giving, so if we want to truly be helpful we need to remember that information is the key!

Seth Godin emphasises something that I think it’s very, very easy to forget: Blogging is not just about the finished blog post, but the process of thinking things through and having a conversation around ideas.

It doesn’t matter what context we are blogging in: business or personal, inside the firewall or publicly, anonymously or as oursevles. We are all writing ourselves into existence, and the important thing to remember is that this is a journey, not a destination.