4 Way Test for Better Blogging

Yes­ter­day, I was given the dis­tinct priv­i­lege of speak­ing to the Day­ton Rotary on the topic of blog­ging. I was joined by emcee Alan Pip­penger, who put the pro­gram together, and blog­gers David Esrati, and Bill Pote. As a mem­ber of the orga­ni­za­tion, I was par­tic­u­larly thrilled to be able to address my fel­low Rotar­i­ans on some­thing that has had such an enor­mous impact on my life.

In prepar­ing for the speech, I was look­ing for some­thing to help the mes­sage fur­ther res­onate with the audi­ence. Then it hit me — the Rotary 4 Way Test. This test, devel­oped by Her­bert J. Tay­lor in 1932, is used as a guide for eth­i­cal deci­sion mak­ing, and is a cor­ner­stone of Rotary Inter­na­tional. It is also a great guide for effec­tive and eth­i­cal blog­ging. It is as follows:

1) Is it the TRUTH?
2) Is it FAIR to all con­cerned?
3) Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4) Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

So how does this apply to blog­ging? Well here is my take.

1) Is it the TRUTH?: This one should be fairly obvi­ous, but deserves expla­na­tion beyond just True / False. If you have read Meat­ball Sun­dae, by Seth Godin, he dis­cusses the impor­tance of telling an authen­tic story — one that is truth­ful with who you are. This can be applied to a per­son, a busi­ness, or even a phil­an­thropic orga­ni­za­tion. Is who you are who you say you are? Is what you say con­sis­tent with what you do? Yes, it is impor­tant to tell the fac­tual truth about the things writ­ten on your blog as they per­tain to oth­ers, but it is equally impor­tant to be truth­ful about your­self. As Seth states, “Say­ing one thing and doing another fails, because you’ll get caught.”

2) Is it FAIR to all con­cerned?: Fair­ness need not be sac­ri­ficed to state what you believe to be true. Con­tro­ver­sial, out­spo­ken blog posts get peo­ple read­ing. It is true that strong opin­ions make for good read­ing, but fair­ness need not be sac­ri­ficed in the process of com­mu­ni­cat­ing your view. No, I am not stat­ing that blog­gers col­lec­tively hold hands and sing Kum Ba Yah, but rather that facts are por­trayed in the proper con­text. Base opin­ions on the facts, as best as they can be under­stood. Don’t invite peo­ple to the con­ver­sa­tion only to shout them right back out. The idea of fair­ness really plays itself out in com­ments and feed­back. All too often, com­ment threads head for the least com­mon denom­i­na­tor of name call­ing and label­ing. There can be mul­ti­ple views, and there should be a wel­com­ing of diver­sity in opin­ion. This is what ulti­mately leads to a deeper under­stand­ing of the world.

3.) Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?: You are upset. You sit down at your com­puter and begin typ­ing. You put your clever wit to work writ­ing a scathing post about the idiot busi­ness, friend, stranger, or pub­lic offi­cial that has seem­ingly wronged you. Be care­ful before pub­lish­ing that post. Think about what you are try­ing to accom­plish before you go tear­ing down oth­ers. What is it you hope to achieve? Do you want to change someone’s mind? Will berat­ing them accom­plish it? Dale Carnegie has some great stuff on this in How to Win Friends and Influ­ence Peo­ple. Ulti­mately we are always the hero of our own story. That applies to you. It applies to the per­son who wronged you. They think you are wrong. Call­ing them stu­pid is not going to change that, and really just makes you look fool­ish. What I would sug­gest is that you focus on the issue of con­tention and not the per­son on the other side of that issue. Yes, peo­ple dis­agree. Yes, peo­ple are stu­pid some­times. Yes, some­times you are the stu­pid one — you just may not know it. Look to build good­will and bet­ter friend­ships through blog­ging. You will keep peo­ple lis­ten­ing rather than putting them on the defen­sive — and may well accom­plish chang­ing the opin­ions of oth­ers. Bet­ter yet, you may change your own.

4.) Will it be BENEFICIAL to all con­cerned?: This one is tough. You can’t make every­one happy, espe­cially if you have an opin­ion to express. Still, this prin­ci­ple becomes an exten­sion of the pre­vi­ous 3. Focus on deliv­er­ing value by mak­ing your crit­i­cism con­struc­tive. If you can not do that, it may well be best to not say­ing any­thing at all. Think before you post. Is what you are get­ting ready to post going to help some­one or hurt them? Using a blog as a plat­form to attack peo­ple with­out regard for their well being is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Even in crit­i­cism, seek to pro­pose solu­tions. Seek to help find deeper mean­ing. Seek the truth. By keep­ing the focus on ben­e­fit­ing all, you ben­e­fit yourself.

Back to yesterday’s speech. I was the first speaker, and was given 5 min­utes to talk. By the time I had recounted a few sto­ries of how writ­ing a weblog has been an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence for me my time was almost up. So while I men­tioned the 4 way test, I did not get time to explain it in more detail. I hope that this post helps to accom­plish that.

Thanks to every­one at Rotary for allow­ing me to speak, and to Alan for invit­ing me to do it. It was a thrill, and I am hon­ored to have been given the chance to use my voice.

Day­ton Rotary