Day 8: Comment on a blog outside of your niche

With limited time in a day and many things to do, we can get into the habit of commenting only on blogs that are related to our niche or specific interests. But this can create a sort of echo chamber effect where we don’t read and engage with information that may challenge our beliefs or our ideas. We then fall into the trap of homophily where we are engaging primarily with people who think and believe what we do.

In today’s challenge, you’re going to find and comment on a blog that is outside of your normal interest areas. If you’re not sure where to start, go to the Technorati Topic Directory and click around some of the topic areas you wouldn’t normally read. Follow the links to some blogs and find a post to comment on. You might want to check out several blogs and conversations to get an idea of how comment sections in other niches differ from the niches you usually operate in. For example, how do the commenters and blogger interact? How do commenters interact with other commenters? What’s the "tone" of those interactions and how do they differ (if at all) from the commenting you usually see.

The blogosphere is vast and there are different cultures of participation that develop in different niches. See what you can learn from these different bloggers and how they engage with their communities. If you blog about what you learn, tag it with the "comment08" tag.

I took the advice and started out by going toTechnorati Topic Directory and clicked on Literature . I ended up on the Happiness Project and was reading the post Six tips for getting yourself to do something you don’t want to do, where I left a comment.

Here are some of the strategies that Gretchen Rubin, the author, of the blog suggests.

1. Put yourself in jail

2. Ask for help .

3. Remember: most decisions don’t require extensive research .

4. Take a baby step .

5. Do it first thing in the morning .

6. Protect yourself from interruption .

Technorati Tags: comment08

Posted: 8. May, 2008 at 10:03 am. Filed under: Blogging, Uncategorized.
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