Day 8’s challenge was also interesting as I’m certainly guilty of homophily which is the term used to describe the behaviour where we engage primarily with people who think and believe as we do. So I followed the instructions and went to the Technorati Topic Directory. I started in some women focused blogs, but didn’t find any that had comments on.. or more than 1 or 2. What was good about this was that it made me feel better that many blogs don’t have avid readers/commenters – or rather commenters anyway! I sometimes think that we’re not doing well when I go to blogs such as Tony Karrer’s who has a heap of commenters!

I then decided to check out entrepenurial blogs – I was curious to see what entrepeneurs talked about and what comments they got. I had to go through about 2 or 3 before I found one with comments. the blog entry itself was quite long and I have to admit I lost interest and stopped reading – but clearly it was a thought provoking and useful post for those in the industry – with 25 comments made. A couple of people posted more than one comment, but most appeared to be responding to the blogger’s ideas..There didn’t appear to be huge amount of interaction with each other. But then the blogpost itself possibly didn’t provide provocative thoughts – instead it seemed to be someone’s ideas from their experience, so the commenters were either of the ‘me to’ ilk, or you’ve been looking over my shoulder, or you’ve given me something to think about! So good learning for creating blogposts that result in ongoing discussions – don’t write long posts that provide the key points (perhaps!).

A holiday potentially from blogging tomorrow and Friday as I fly up to Hamilton in the North Island for a Kairaranga Editorial Team/Board meeting – will be great to catch up with the whole board on Friday. I”m looking forward to feedback about two articles I’ve encouraged to be submitted – but I can’t say any more here as one is in the editorial process.. and the other has yet to be submitted for review. Both have come from discussions I’ve had with occupational therapists outside of NZ… so hopefully it will bring more of an international flavour to Kairaranga.  I must also start my next assignment for my EdD studies this weekend – the topic is about professional development, and our profession – basically setting the scene and exploring existing research in order to start to frame up my own research questions – so am looking forward to doing that – if I can only stop getting sidetracked by more ‘fun’ activities with my colleagues around the world!