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Here, below, is my contribution to a book project titled 100 Bloggers.

I am proud to have been invited into the project by one of the best living advertisments I know for blogging as a personal pastime, Andy Borrows of the blog Older and Growing. I have watched and read Andy’s blog since its inception, and can honestly say (as I have said several times to him) that this man was meant to be a writer … or at the very least that he should continue writing as a vital passion or hobby.

Thanks, Andy for the vote of confidence and friendship I felt you offered when inviting me to join you and 98 other bloggers.

Here’s my heartfelt contribution,

From Word of Mouth to Words In Mouths

Blogging – what an interesting new word for the many who are discovering the creative and expressive joy of their voice connecting with other hearts and minds. What a useful and powerful means for those who wish to explore ideas, build friendships, think “out loud” or register and activate dissent or various forms of developmental action. It’s coming to be recognized as a smooth, highly varied and organically conductive medium for rapidly spreading ideas, concepts and services through wide arcs of connected groups and communities.

It’s not surprising that it’s also being seen as the current “best” way for creating viral awareness of ideas, questions, issues and possibilities. If we believe (as I submit we should) that we are now well into the process of re-creating most aspects of human sociology in an online context and environment … at least where humans have computers and access to the Internet …then what we are witnessing is the online equivalent of the basic human phenomenon of “word of mouth”.

But I think there’s more to it than just “word of mouth” …

The notion of “word of mouth” feels so intrinsically right to humans. It’s the most human of things, at its finest - a natural voice-carried system of recommending, alerting, warning, questioning and rallying interest and action based on passion and responsibility.

… Hey, did you hear about this? It’s really cool. … but you have to watch out for using it too much, ‘cuz it gets expensive …or … You’ve got to get new tires? Well, last year I replaced mine with that new type from Whatchamabrand and they are really great … you can get them at the XYZ Tire ranch over on Friendly Street … you know where it is, don’t you ?” …

Ideas, experiences and recommendations are pushed out, tentatively at first and as part of normal everyday conversation. Then, as frequency builds and relationships start, connections firm and enable nuance … trust builds and people begin to assess, probe, understand, deepen, and add value to each other’s context and enquiry. Bit by bit, more and more assertively, connecting and making its way into the mind (and maybe under the skin of others. Word of mouth is a fundamental and intrinsic dynamic of the larger process of human conversation.

In today’s interconnected and interlinked environment, this process is increasingly embodied in the creative, expressive process of blogging. In this context “word of mouth” is often understood as the fundamental behaviour underneath the concepts such as the tipping point, viral marketing, creating a buzz, and both the playful and purposeful exchange of information and knowledge. I tell you, you tell, me, we each tell two friends, and so on and so on. And from these dynamics in an online world, those connections grow breadth, depth, revelation, and human stickiness.

What blogging – which many people suggest is a new form of human conversation in an online context and environment - brings to these dynamics that may be different from basic “word of mouth” is a phenomenon that I’ll call “words in mouths”.

What do I mean by this?

“Words in mouths” connotes for me an experience I’ve come to appreciate deeply in the course of growing my skills as a blogger, individually and in community with other bloggers. Clearly ‘word of mouth” is in operation underneath the distribution and spreading of useful or popular ideas and information … but I think there’s something different and perhaps richer or more complex occurring as well … something that adds depth and richness to the process of “word of mouth”.

Just as in basic human word of mouth, online conversations (let’s call it blogging from hereon in) acquire context, richness, depth, and create trust and relationships. In the process of blogging we write, read, comment and display images that allow us to learn and grow our way into relationship, build trust and move into useful and valuable exchanges of information and knowledge. While blogging, word by word, idea by idea, byte by byte we humans assess and begin to understand those who attend to what we publish, and who probe and extend our personal gropings for sense and meaning.

But/and … we do it in public, and we do it more often than not while engaged in a curious process that mixes a very personal one-on-one dynamic together with at the same one-to-all and any-to-one process that can be either synchronous or asynchronous in time. And while blogging we often use links, pointers and pieces of others’ analyses and expositions – words in mouths, let’s call it - to instantiate our thinking and our creative expression. In doing so ultimately we begin the socially constructed process – online – of building a sense of the degree to which we share perspectives, values and interests - and can learn from - others.

We use our personal creative blogging work and read and interact with others’ work - we use our own “words in mouth” and others “words in mouths” to co-create meaning and grow a sense of others’ personal explorations, trustworthiness, reliability and humanity. Blogging our minds and hearts, and interacting to varying degrees with others’ “words in mouths” … whether it serves to dilute, diminish, dismiss, amplify, reinforce or endorse exploration, ideas, beliefs, issues and action allows us to experience the same basic human process served by the dynamics of “word of mouth”. We decide whom we can and want to trust, and seek out the understanding and meaning that allows us to grow, learn and act upon our own socially constructed reality. This then helps us, if not forces us, to work at being clear about who we are, what we believe and want, and how we are going to go about living our lives.

From word of mouth to words in mouths – blogging allows us to add others, in a new way, to the basic human dynamics of co-creating the world of sense and meaning in which individuals must, necessarily, live.