Blogs put you face-to-screen with expert advice
Concerned about a mole on your arm or the weird scraping noise your car makes during left turns?
In the old days, you had to wait for a cocktail party to pester a dermatologist or mechanic for an opinion—or even (shudder) make an appointment for a paid consult.
But thanks to the blogosphere, you now can buttonhole experts day or night on just about any subject. E-mail a specialist blogger or post a reasonable query in the blog’s comment field and you’ll likely receive useful free advice within a day or so.
Or search the blog’s archives for entries that address similar questions and you might be breathing easier about that blemish or checking the level of your car’s power-steering fluid within minutes.
The rise of expert blogs is a revolutionary development, but it’s one most journalists — myself included — haven’t paid enough attention to.
That’s because tracking down experts is part of our job, so these blogs merely represent a time-saving device to us. We once hoarded college media guides and industry directories, and then started Googling contact info for specialists. These days, the online journals of great potential sources lie at our fingertips.
But for folks who aren’t used to cold-calling a noted criminologist one day and an eminent surgeon the next, blogworld has opened the gated community of experts to all comers.
A few months ago on one of my Spokesman-Review blogs, I poked some fun at Paul Goebel, the King of TV. (You might remember him from the Comedy Central game show “Beat the Geeks.”)
Goebel boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of television. But I took exception to something he said in the Los Angeles Times about the number of regular characters who have died on “Law & Order.”
A vigorous exchange of e-mails ensued after Goebel saw my post, but we ended up stalemated due to a lack of definitive proof on both sides (although in his heart, I’m sure he knows I’m right).
As luck would have it, Goebel recently launched his own blog. So now you don’t have to meet the King of TV on the streets of Los Angeles or tease him on a newspaper’s Web site to tap this fount of pop-culture trivia.
“People write me a lot or stop me and ask questions about TV and I am always happy to share my opinions or knowledge,” Goebel said via e-mail. “In my case, I help people learn more about a subject that they have been taught is unimportant. We all watch and love TV, but most Americans consider it superfluous. I am always amazed at how passionate people get about this superfluous subject.”
Beyond helping you win bar bets, expert blogs can boost your career prospects. Gearing up to land literary representation recently, I immersed myself in agent blogs ranging from the prickly Miss Snark and the salty A Gent’s Outlook to the gentle Pub Rants of “a very nice literary agent” in Colorado.
From their unvarnished anecdotes and opinions, I learned more about what to look for in an agent, how to approach one and what kinds of questions to ask before sealing the deal. The blogs took the mystery out of the process and helped my search succeed. Although I remained a lurker, a few agent bloggers even evaluate reader pitches.
In a similar vein, the “semi-anonymous” human resources manager who runs Your HR Guy’s Blog made this offer last week: “job seekers can submit their résumés to me and I can take a look at it as an HR guy and offer some uncensored advice to improve it. No charge, of course, and your privacy and confidentiality are guaranteed.”
Who knows, blogs might end up improving your life, too.