My name is Pablo Rodríguez-Bilella, and I am a social researcher at the Argentine Research Council and a professor of Social Anthropology at the UNSJ (Argentina). I have been involved for the past few years in different uses of Web 2.0, and below I will share with you some lessons of my blogging experience at Al Borde Del Caos.
Rad Resources: Initially, I began to follow several twitterers who also blog about evaluation and development (see EvalCentral or my trending tweets). Very soon I realized that I wasn´t satisfied with the stuff I had been finding in Spanish about these issues (with the exception of Evaluateca!). Being involved in networks (mainly ReLAC and IOCE), conferences and research around evaluation was an extra motivation to begin blogging in Spanish. The idea of increasing the visibility and role of evaluation was pretty clear, so in September 2011 I began this adventure of blogging at Al Borde del Caos!
Hot Tips – most popular post:
I inserted a Translate to English button in my blog that, although far from perfect, it could help readers to have a close idea of what I´m posting. So, these were the four more popular posts:
- So, what the Busan brings? (5th December 2011)
- Two evaluators in Busan (30 November 2011)
- Mi crónica de la 6º Conferencia de AfrEA (18th January 2012)
- Viernes light: África mía (16th December 2011)
Lessons Learned:
- Having a “bank of topics” is a great idea. So, every time something exciting appears somewhere, I send it to Evernote, and it will be ready when I´ll be looking for fresh ideas to blog.
- On the other hand, several posts were written based on invitations, challenges or interest to give diffusion to something.
- Blogging can be a time consuming activity, but it is time well used! The possibilities of networking, of finding similar (and different) people in the evaluation field, of learning by sharing, etc. are great returns for the investment done.
- Publishing a post is just half of the work. The other half implies engaging with people who make comments or inquires, and letting the world know about the new post.
- Many times this engagement with commenters doesn´t happen in the same blog, but in discussions groups in LinkedIn (pay a look to the several ones I am part of), the Facebook page of the blog, or Google Plus. If people are having fun in a particular bar, don’t push them to another one (unless everybody wants to move!)
As I like to say when I publish a new post: You are invited to visit Al Borde del Caos and polish your Spanish (or use the translate button!)
This year, we’re running a series highlighting evaluators who blog. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
Nice touch with the Translate to English button! I took beginners Spanish lessons for a few months this year, it would have been great to have access to your posts then. Thank you for the use of different languages to get your message to a wider platform of evaluators.