Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 06:11 am GMT -4 | 
Wow… Tuesday already? I guess it all flies when you’re having a good time ‘eh? Well 2010 is here and we’re continuing our series on why bloggers I follow do the deed of blogging. The series is oddly enough called Why do you blog? Thus far we’ve run the route of professionals and novices from experts to writers and the theme will continue. Today’s answer the question at hand is from Christopher Albon who maintains quite a busy life of blogging on his own site Conflict Heath and a fellow contributor on the USNI blog. Chris happens to be one of those I met, and only know, via social networking; or rather I should say I found him via the services of Twitter and I’ve been hooked on his stuff since. His specialty is in the realm of “human security, health diplomacy, and public health consequences of armed conflict.” (He made that easy as it’s right on the site.)
Why does Christopher Albon blog?
I write Conflict Health for a number of reasons, both personal and professional. That said, one in particular is worthy of note. Unless you work in a large research lab (something rare in the social sciences), research is a lonely business. If you are lucky enough to have other researchers interested in similar topics, they are in all likelihood thousands of miles away. The end result is that, except for one or two conferences a year, your daily life as a researcher largely consists of sitting at the computer alone.
Recently, a hard working professor friend [received] an expensive voice recorder as a gift from his wife. After two months she asked him why he had yet to use it. His reason was telling: other than at one small event, he hadn’t had a face to face conversation with anyone about his research in more than three months.
Publishing Conflict Health is the best [substitute] for local, offline colleagues. The articles on the site are a form of conversation, a quick snapshot of my (often flawed) thinking on an issue. By publishing those thoughts online, I am forced to both formalize them in prose and defend them against critics. If the world’s armed conflict and public health scholars worked under the same roof, this process would be conducted the traditional way: through seminars and meetings over coffee. But, given the distributed nature the field, I have resorted to the modern day equivalent of pamphlets: the blog.
The use of blogs, or any social media medium, has become the norm or at the very least a standard tool for many to connect with those in the same fields or interest groups as themselves. I feel as if I too have been able to connect with those of the same interest be it Coast Guard or general military; good and bad, I’ve been able to discuss matters of interest to me with other who are thousands of miles away to those right here in the Hampton Roads area. Blogging is but one tool in the arsenal of available tools and it’s up to us as to how we use ‘em.
Thanks Chris for taking your time in answering- so, why do you blog?
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