Blogging Lessons

Mark Hermann at the Drug & Device Law Blog celebrated his one year blogiversary with a retrospective on four lessons he learned about blogging:

1) “blogging — or, at a minimum, blogging about substantive legal issues — is hard.” Eric’s comment: personally, I find blogging is easy–much easier than writing a law review article. What’s hard for me is finding the time to blog.

2) “blogging is personally satisfying.”

3) “law firms, like law schools, are clueless about how to value blogs.” Eric’s comment: I certainly sympathize with this observation, but implicit in it is that there is a right method to value blogs and it’s different from the valuation method we’re using now. Personally, I haven’t settled on a preferred valuation method, so it’s hard to say we’re getting it wrong right now.

4) “Blogging pays off.” He follows up this observation with a specific example that rings true for me:

It pays off in part by being a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whether or not you know anything about drug and device products liability law, you appear to be an expert in that field as of the day you launch the “Drug and Device Law Blog.” Impressed by your expertise, and hoping that you’ll mention them online, complete strangers begin sending you e-mails containing unpublished decisions, creative ideas and endless other tidbits relating to drug and device law. Eventually, your blog becomes a clearinghouse for information about the subject it covers. By staking a claim to some online turf, you gradually come to dominate that turf and to become an insider on events in that field.