{"id":11732,"date":"2016-02-24T05:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/?p=11732"},"modified":"2016-02-24T09:05:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T15:05:26","slug":"a-followup-exchange-on-should-more-academics-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcfbellemare.com\/wordpress\/11732","title":{"rendered":"Should More Academics Blog? A Follow-Up Exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Bloem, whose initial post caused me to write my own post<\/a>\u00a0a few weeks ago about whether more academics should blog,\u00a0forwarded my post to a colleague of mine and mentor of his at MSU. My colleague was kind enough to cc me on his reply to Jeff:<\/p>\n

Thanks for sending! I disagree with Marc at the margin. He has a good point that there\u2019s an important self-selection factor that no doubt gives an upward bias to the effect of blogging on careers …<\/p>\n

But my gut says that Marc misses one important point: There is a generational bias effect too. Few from my generation are blogging, yet some could do so well. Our colleague [Redacted]\u00a0is a frenetic emailer. Had he started his career 20 years later, I suspect he would be blogging and have a meaningful following.\u00a0…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My response, in which I make a point (in bold) I don’t see often in discussions of whether academics should blog:<\/p>\n

You are right that the timing within one’s career matters a whole lot, and the implicit, underlying assumption I was making was for people roughly of my generation and younger. Had the technology been around when [Redacted]\u00a0was an assistant professor …\u00a0I think he would have become a leading blogger, on top of being a leading researcher.\u00a0…<\/p>\n

There’s also a different kind of timing, in a Stackelberg<\/a> sense: I remember reading a book about the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing<\/a><\/em> (sounds silly, but the book has great content about how to package\/present your research), and the first law is something like: It is more important to be first than to be better.<\/b> [It looks like t]here is a [huge]\u00a0first-mover advantage to [being the first to blog about a distinct, specific area of research.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And indeed [Warning! Casual empiricism follows], the most well-known blogs in any given area are also the oldest: Marginal Revolution<\/a> was probably the first economics blog. Similarly, Chris Blattman<\/a> was, as far as I can tell, the first to blog regularly about development economics.<\/p>\n

Update: Alex Tabarrok notes in a tweet to me that there was survivorship bias. Indeed; the point above, like the point I made in my earlier post, applies to those who have continued blogging and ignores those bloggers who have attrited out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Bloem, whose initial post caused me to write my own post\u00a0a few weeks ago about whether more academics should blog,\u00a0forwarded my post to a<\/p>\n

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