Fan mail with a twist

I’m beginning to sense that I’m building a theme with my midday posts this week, that of the blogosphere’s influence on political discourse in America 2008. It wasn’t intentional but I’ll let it ride for awhile and see where it goes.

The e-mail in question almost seemed like one of those which went to hundreds of bloggers, but it was personalized enough that I thought maybe it was legit. Just in case, and since I didn’t necessarily get permission to share the full contents, I’ll omit the name of the person and the organization. Let’s just say it’s one I agree with to a large extent and I appreciated the information the writer forwarded to me (which is commonly available in this case, maybe the info won’t be so common in the future.) I’m sure I’ll use this particular citation somewhere in a future post.

I’m writing to you today because I recently discovered your work on Maryland Voice and Monoblogue and I found the commentary very interesting. Since energy has emerged as a key issue in this election cycle, I thought I should introduce myself and make myself available to you as a resource.

I’m (withheld) and I work with (an energy-related organization.) I noticed you often focus on policy issues, I thought you might be interested in (a) document that addresses some of the political comments made about the industry recently. (Indeed, I was sent a nice link – stuff I suspected but didn’t have the numbers for.)

Although most members of Congress are in their home states on recess this month, the energy debate is still going strong. Therefore, please let me know if you ever have any questions about energy issues. I’m happy to provide statistics or put you in touch with one of our industry experts.

I look forward to continuing to read your blog and hope we can stay in touch.

When I looked into this further, I found out that Maryland Voice is a republishing blog, which is why I hadn’t heard of it. It’s sort of like one of those enterprises that exists solely as a place for someone to place advertising hoping to make big money. However, my blog is real and I’m glad the person in question agrees with me. I look forward to having him (or her) as a source.

It got me to thinking about the number of new organizations which have sprung up in even the last year or two as the internet becomes more and more pervasive as an information source. Before, someone who wanted to begin a new advocacy group had to somehow scratch up the funding to advertise in the mainstream media and let themselves become known. Now they can do the same thing for essentially free on Youtube. Even better for them, there’s a happy marriage brewing between bloggers who are always looking for new and interesting content and those outfits which can provide it. In my case, I’m happy to give a hand when my aims and the group’s goals are congruent.

With all that clutter, though, there is a danger of dilution. Too many groups with the same message become competitors rather than allies and the infighting can be damaging to the cause as a whole. The organization in question for this post probably isn’t going to go away soon, but other startups in energy-related fields could go from low-budget to no-budget rather quickly if the issue is solved. It’s something we all need to keep in the back of our minds.

In the meantime, I appreciate the fan mail and am glad this person reads my thoughts on a regular basis.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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