No… “blogging for change” doesn't mean blogging for pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.
By ‘change', I mean using your blog to make things happen!
Case in point.
On Earth Day night, I couldn't help but notice the ugly glare from the HUGE lamp standards at our local baseball field than burned for hours on end while no one played… AGAIN.
As a local taxpayer and someone concerned about the environmental damage caused by wasteful energy usage (not to mention how we should be conserving every precious kilowatt), I had already phoned City Hall about the issue.
However, despite assurances to the contrary — nothing happened.
So, that night I took photographic evidence of the bright empty field, uploaded the pics to Flickr and then blogged my utter disgust in a post at Roamsters.
What do you think happened when I phoned City Hall the second time and said “Oh and by the way, if you Blog search Google, you'll see a blog post entitled “Wasting Energy: How Penticton Celebrates Earth Day” right at the top of the listings?
You're right! Changes started to happen the very next day!
The Parks guys programmed the system so the lights turned off at 10PM the following night, rather than 10:30PM. A couple of nights later, one of the Parks guys went out to the field on his own time and seeing that is was empty, turned the lights off at 9PM.
A couple of days after that a switch was installed at the field so the lights will only work when the team is there and actively turns the lights on and a discussion was held with the local baseball league to inform them of their responsibility to turn the lights OFF when they leave.
And best of all (from my selfish perspective), a Parks rep visited our home and a link to the blog post was sent to the company that installed the lights. By result, in the next few days the company will adjust them downwards to reduce the glare from our (dis)advantage point.
How's that for effective blogging? 🙂
For me personally, the effect is hugely satisfying… moreso even than if I'd made a pot full of money blogging about something else. It feels really good to be able to effect quick change on a level that benefits both my community's environment and budget.
Would the response have been as quick if I'd said, “go take a look at my website” instead of “blog search Google”?
Based on previous experience, I don't think so. I believe the quick response was by and large a result of how effective blogs are in scoring points with Google.
And I'm sure I'll have opportunity to test that theory sometime in the not-too-distant future… but next time I'll upload video to YouTube! 🙂