Pro Bloggers Association? Let this meme die quickly.

Paul Chaney at Radiant Marketing Group thinks it would be a swell idea to create a Professional Bloggers Association, and he's looking for help. Let's hope this little meme dies quickly.

Chaney points out:

"without attempting to sound high-minded or self-congratulatory, one thing know is that I have something important to do -- build a trade association to promote the common interests of those who make their living in some blog-related field, whether it be professional blog writers (those are especially near and dear to my heart), business blog consultants, blog designers, or platform developers to name a few SIGs."

How that's going to help anyone is yet unclear since the nascent force is still "developing its mantra".

This reminds me of those many attempts in the late 90s to turn anyone who advised clients on Web communication into "Webmasters" for which there were a dozen eager "guilds"... But, of course, professional communicators never thought of themselves as "webmasters"; they thought of themselves as professional communicators doing the job they'd been doing before -- yes, with "new" media, but there's always "new" media somewhere.

The same with advising clients on how to use blogs effectively in their business. That doesn't make you a "professional blogger". It makes you a professional communicator doing your job.

But Chaney argues for "credentialing" of bloggers because, god knows, with 5 million or so out there, how's a client going to separate the wheat from the chaff?

"Why do I feel an association is important? Because this industry is in its infancy, I believe its going to need some type of credentialing agency to give it greater credibility, and to increase visibility.

"An agency such as this could provide not only information, education and training opportunities, but networking and jobs as well."

Yes, there's our updated Webmaster Guild.

Chaney is not stopping with just a guild, though:

"Out of this group the Business Blog Chamber of Commerce could be formed. That organization could include membership of anyone who uses a blog in their business."

The astonishing... it's the word that comes springing to mind... thing about this is that he's enlisted Steve Rubel, Amy Gahran, Jeremy Wright, and HHHH into this....

Let's hope this meme dies an early death, and we communicators can go back to advising clients without pretending to be high priests of a secret art.

Read more "Pro Bloggers Association? Let this meme die quickly."

Posted by Allan Jenkins on January 18, 2005 at 11:17 PM in Blogging, Communication, Ethics | Permalink

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