Jack of all trades?

Steven Hodson, over at Winextra often makes thought provoking posts on his blog, which is why I am a regular reader of his. (Disclosure: Steven is a friend of mine, and I have enjoyed participating in the community forum he runs for many years)

Today was no exception.  Earlier in the day I had read the scobleizer entry on Robert Scoble’s experiment in travelling with a politician on the campaign trail. Something about Scoble’s post bugged me.  I wasn’t sure what it was – it seemed reasonable enough, explaining where he’d been, what he saw, and how he thought the experience would fit with his future endeavours.   There was little of the usual whining.

Then I read Steven’s post, posing the question Is there really any depth to blogging?  I realized what it was that had been bugging me.   So following Steven’s advice I thought about it for a while as I shopped with my wife for gardening supplies, and did some yard work. (Like she was just going to let me sit down and type this instead of shopping – yeah right…)  So eventually I got to sit down and write about my thoughts.

Firstly, there is a reason why Dan Balz and his colleagues were able to sit down and pump
out column inches immediately after seeing and hearing the things they did.   Dan and others are political correspondents. Dan has been involved in the paper’s political coverage as a reporter or editor for the past 27 years.   He knows exactly how the events unfolding before him, fit in with the way he has reported them in the past.   He knows exactly how he needs to report them to fulfill his objectives, and those of his employer.

Dan Balz is not a tech geek blogger, he does not write reviews for Vista loaded Acer Ferraris, he doesn’t write about football, crashing his car, losing his camera, or the political arguments he has with his family. He and others of his profession write about politics.   They live and breathe it.   Somehow Scoble thinks he should be able to keep up with professionals at the top of their game, during the build up to an event that occurs only once every four years.   Maybe Balz even “tries to read your blog, but can’t understand it.

Secondly, where is the stimulus for Scoble to publish?  He already has the scoop, the whole thing was done with the utmost secrecy.  How many other tech geek bloggers accompanied Edwards on his campaign as Scoble did? If Balz were to delay and think things over for any length of time, then he would be scooped by the NYT, WSJ or some other member of the press entourage.

The reason Scoble gives for his presence is that he was there to report on “the Tech side” of the campaign.   Meanwhile he drip feeds his readers tidbits such as “Edwards likes Diet Sunkist” – I’m sure that will get the political staffers knocking your door down to get you “that unique interview that is different from the ones CNN can get.” If there were 4
other A-list bloggers on that same trip, and ratings and ad revenue depended on it, would you take a week to “process the video and audio stuff” you got?

Readers might like to know whether Edwards check his Gmail account religiously every 15 min, or gets some flunky to do it once a day. How much time does the man himself get to spend on matters relating to his facebook or myspace pages? These pages appear to give some kind of blogger cred to Edwards in Scoble’s eyes. Safer to stick to the Sunkist eh?

Perhaps Mr Scoble should follow the advice of readers of his blog and stick to writing about tech matters, which funnily enough he can probably start typing about the minute he finishes his interview/test. Maybe for his next experiment he could run with a sniper or IED guy in a combat zone.   Tell us how cool under pressure those guys are, and how he’ll never be able to calmly sit down at a laptop in the middle of a war zone after a firefight and write a blog like a milblogger can.