Just to sum up do I see the traditional relation between writer, text and reader as the first dimension. Thinking circularly about this relationship makes it two dimensional as it allows the flow in both directions and connects the reader and writer beyond the text. The third dimension is when you turn the circle into a sphere by considering all the relations between writers and writers, texts and texts and readers and readers. The fourth dimension is time, which unfortunately is a dominant a force when it comes to blogging as in life in general.

You are surely familiar with the question about what came first, the hen or the egg? Although I do know the answer (which is quite simple once you break of the circularity of the question) I am not going to flaunt it as this is not about knowing the answer, but about understanding the question. Sometimes it seems impossible to know what came first. Sometimes you shouldn’t be able to tell.

Splitting things up like I do thus makes little logical sense. Still does it provide a platform for examining the elements isolated. You can not have text without a writer, just as you cannot have a writer without a text. You cannot have readers without texts, while admittedly you can have texts without readers. The elements are nonetheless closely connected and not really logically separable. Still is it worth looking at each of them isolated as that brings new perspectives into the light and makes it possible to think differently about them.

You do perhaps ask yourself what all this talk about circularity is good for and where it comes from. I always loved circles more than straight lines, I believe that most things are circular in some way and I think that reflecting and communicating accordingly is often more rewarding. Think about how we communicate to get a response, how we receive when we give and how we often return to the same places or ideas when we find ourselves lost. Admittedly, does thinking this way seem to make everything more complicated, but sometimes it is really worth it.

As I get the articles written will I link them to this post and add links to them here so that this post ends up being the hub around which they are hovering. Your comments and input are as always not only welcome, but deeply appreciated.

I set out to communicate about communication. Considered blogging itself to be part of that was it natural that I explored blogs blogging about it thoroughly. Playing with the circularity of it all I began blogging about blogging as well. Learning by doing was the way I chose to learn the ropes. Linking to others who had touched similar subjects seemed both natural and logic to do. After all if the communication should be circular it had to reach out. At first nothing happened. Then people who I linked to started commenting here and recognizing me when I commented on their blogs. I mailed a few asking questions or seeking advice. Practically all of them responded. Although I am sure they get much more mail than the average person did they actually take the time to read and respond. Probably not least because they at least had an idea who it was from and what I was about.

When looking back the greatest pleasure of the beginning of my blogging journey have been how many people I have connected with in so relatively short time. It has not propelled me to world fame nor has it made my blog the center of the universe. Not to anyone but me at least. I have however noticed that the real thrill is when something you wrote in solitude gets company. Not only that it is being read, but that someone takes the time to comment on it, to link to it or even to write about it. That people know who you are because they have read you. That you have actually connected with someone through your writing. Since I actually started out writing to myself as many bloggers do when they first start blogging did it take some time before the ball got rolling. Staying true to what I wanted to achieve paid of though. Connections were made and if cared for they will continue to exist.

When reflecting about it I imagined a grid consisting of the elements mentioned. Since I cannot draw very well will you have to imagine it as well. On one axis is the classic relation between writer, text and reader. On the other is all your fellow bloggers with their own triangular relations. Their writing, themselves and their readers that is. However important these triangles are do each of them not signify much in the grand scheme of things. If we however apply a little circular thinking and imagine that writer, text and reader each are points on a circle it becomes much more interesting. Then the relation is not just dynamics in a straight line, but feeds itself. The writer writes a text, which is read by a reader. That in itself is bound to influence the writer when he writes again, but the dynamic can also be turned around, which reverses the roles. When the reader comments he turns writer just as the writer turns reader when reading it.

Expanding how we think about it from the one dimensional straight line to the two dimensional circle still doesn’t accurately depict my experiences though. Perhaps is the word Blogosphere not such a bad term for it after all. Taking this concept to heart we put on our 3D glasses realizing that those circles in fact form a sphere. In lack of a better image can you think of them as the longitude and latitude lines on a terrestrial globe. Instead of one or two dimensional connections between writer, text and reader do we now also have three dimensional connections between writers, readers and texts. It is no longer merely writer – text – reader or vice versa, but also writer – writer – writer, text – text – text and reader – reader – reader. Remember this is not individual people, but roles and the writers and readers typically the same who however when interacting act in different capacities.

Everyone who have made the slightest effort can attest to the connections between bloggers. You may be unaware of them at first, but you soon discover bands of connections. They may know each other through their work, through common projects, guest blogging, blog networks and not least through reading each others writing. That is also typically where the connections between readers come into existence. Readers do also connect when reading though. That may not be a direct connection, but it is certainly one that becomes obvious when they turn writers and comment on what they have read. As far as connections between texts is concerned is practically every text online worth reading connected to at least one other text. Not least so when it comes to blogs where linking out is not only regarded a duty when citing someone, but also a natural part of writing and posting in general.

As for the fourth dimension can I only attest to that there just isn’t enough time to do everything you would like to do. Exactly for that reason you should actually reserve enough of it to enjoy and be aware of what you are doing. In fact is looking back and thinking about what was not a bad use of the present. As long as it prepares you better for the future that is. Time is a strange thing. In some ways the time past have gone incredibly fast and in other ways does it seem like some things took forever. This was obviously not the case. However, you do see what was significant when looking back and that is where it pays off to pay attention. Whether it is remembering the successes with fondness or the bitterness of what went wrong I will try to take it with me as I look forward. There is so much more to do. So much to write and so much to read and so many other connections to make.

Since everyone is here let us begin. Regardless whether you are the one pitching or the recipient are there certain things you need to keep in mind when writing or reacting to a pitch, which leads me to ask all of you:

“How should you ideally pitch a blogger if you want something from him?”

Leave the hard-hitting hyperbole at home when marketing yourself to authority bloggers. Remember what your mom said about old-fashioned courtesy and kindness. They work especially well in the post-modern blog universe.

Roberta Rosenberg

Lead with the link. I’m a blogger. I read links. It’s what we do. I might skip the rest of your poorly-written email if there’s a URL at the top with full info about your product or service, and then if it’s interesting, I might even link to that page.

Anil Dash

Be relevant. It seems so simple and obvious, yet it is the biggest mistake made when pitching bloggers. Look at the categories of the blog and look at previous blog posts. Is your pitch REALLY relevant for the blog? With a lot of the pitches we get, you can tell there’s been no attempt to look any further than the title of the blog.

Lee Odden

Bloggers aim to provide a personal view of the news. They write in conversational style as an antidote to the canned news of traditional media. Why would you send a canned PR-speak pitch?

B.L. Ochman

Just give ‘em the facts and let the pitch stand on its own. Be proud! If you feel you’re not offering high value information, go back to the drawing board and re slant your pitch until you come up with something truly compelling.

Steve Rubel

Make it short and sweet: Generally, the shorter and more concise, the better. I don’t need your full 500 word press release. Tell me why I should be interested in 50 words or less, and then link to it. If you can’t communicate why this is worth my time in 50 words, you’re unlikely to be able to do so in 500 words.

Jeremy Wright

The goal is to build a lasting relationship with people. So reach out to them and sympathize with their problems and find ways that you can help them. Helping people is the best way to build contacts.

Nick O’Neill

Thank you for your answers. You really gave some great answers and offered a lot of insight… Yes, Lee, did you want to add something?

Don’t be offended or give up if a blogger doesn’t take your story the first time. Be courteous and smart about repeat attempts though. Watch to see if they really do pick up on your story before sending another pitch. Of course, this is not a problem if you actually read their blog.

Lee Odden

Thanks Lee, it certainly does pay to be persistent doesn’t it. Regardless of whether you are a blogger reaching out to other bloggers or a company looking for exposure for your products or your clients is there a lot you should pay attention to and take the time learning provided you want to do well. None of us appreciates being spoken to by strangers raving on about things we have little or no relation to. Ideally we want to buy and get advice or suggestions from someone who we know and respect just as we want to pass on what we know and like to them. Hence would my advice be not to speak to people, but to speak with them. It will be a whole lot more rewarding for everyone.

You can learn a whole lot more by reading the rest of the posts quoted above as well as by reading Bloggers: An invaluable communications channel, which will give you more of a background while The PR Wiki: Tips on Pitching Bloggers and The Bad Pitch Blog all are full of good advice and examples of both poor and great pitches and pitching.

The inspiration for this post came from reading Liz Strauss’ Writing Challenge: Joanna’s Thematic Link Post! I was both taken in and carried away about the circularity of it all. Seeing how my first guest post on Lorelle on WordPress Why A Link Post Should Be Like Mingling at a Party was picked up by Joanna Young in her post How to write a links post and then turned into a writing challenge, which now circulates among the readers of Successful Blog.

In addition this post can be seen as trying yet another way of writing a link post combining my usual way of writing link posts with how I normally write quotation posts as well as my idea about the virtual interview.

In fact it was so rewarding that I am turning this into a series with the intention of shedding more and different light on various aspects of the various concepts related to circular communication. In the hope that you like reflecting about concepts and conceptions as much as I do is this thus the first batch of quotations for your reading and reflecting pleasure:

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.

Deborah Tannen

My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn’t just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you’ve got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren’t only bombs and bullets—no, they’re little gifts, containing meanings!

Philip Roth

The birth of thought in the depths of the spirit, the shaping and ordering of it into periods, the translation into signs, and above all the transference of it from one spirit to another, the communication that is, if only for an instant, the meeting of two beings, with the unforeseeable consequences that such a meeting always causes, is in fact a miracle; except that the moment one stops to think about it one can’t even write a letter.

Salvatore Satta

The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.

Edwin H. Friedman

There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication…. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.

John Dewey

We cannot feel strongly toward the totally unlike because it is unimaginable, unrealizable; nor yet toward the wholly like because it is stale—identity must always be dull company. The power of other natures over us lies in a stimulating difference which causes excitement and opens communication, in ideas similar to our own but not identical, in states of mind attainable but not actual.

Charles Horton Cooley

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is out and the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it is defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free speech men get into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis of all common achievement.

Woodrow Wilson

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.

Jean Baudrillard

I have always loved quotations. While they cannot replace complete works I find it fascinating how much you can pack into just a few words or sentences. Unlike reading the whole book or hearing the entire conversation they leave room for interpretation and reflection. They mean something different to different people and can yet act as facilitators of great thoughts and meaningful acts. Hence have I also decided not offer my interpretation, but to leave them as they are.

The best quotations are the ones that reoccur to us when we need them the most. I have a few of those and hope that you do to. If not then this series of quotations on concepts related to circular communication may help you find some that can guide and support you.

The web is neither the ideal environment for social interaction nor the harmonic utopia that some seem to see it as. It never will be. Just as in other aspects of life where people engage will there also be negative sides and seemingly negative sides. The latter being those that indeed can be very positive if handled appropriately. The following articles presents various concepts and will help you make the best of even the seemingly negative as well as dealing with the really negative. Since there is no way of escaping it you may as well learn how to deal with these things, optimize your own behavior and make the most of whatever happens.

How to Disagree and Persuade without Offending
This article is centered around how you get your point across without getting into a fight. The six strategies of persuasion presented and elaborated does a very good job of rounding off all aspects of engaging in conversations online. In fact I would claim that if just half the people participating in discussions online used them we would all be twice as clever as we currently are. Well worth thinking about and acting upon.

Communication Skills for Bloggers
Darren Rowse finds it a little ironic that bloggers often seem to be struggling with miscommunication. However is that perhaps simply because blogging is no different than many other things we do. We are well aware of what we should be doing, but something prevents us actually doing it. Defining the two key concepts (assertiveness and active listening) and the underlying aspects this articles does a great job of summing up what you should be doing as well as where it so often goes wrong.

10 Steps to Conflict Resolution
Using couple counseling as springboard Darren Rowse presents 10 steps of resolving conflicts related to blogging relationships. This is can be seen as the second piece of the puzzle with the article above being the first one. While actually seeing conflict as something that can be positive the list can serve as a guide to resolving those conflicts that hold you back rather than bring you forward. Don’t take it too literally, but think about how to apply it to the conflicts you encounter.

The Concept of Being Considerate to Others
Bes Zain broadens the concept of being considerate from being about being considerate of others to being considerate to others, which is much more direct and relevant when interacting with someone. Then it is not simply about being able to get along with people with different views, but to actually appreciate both them and their differing views. It can thus be seen as a plea not only to accept differences, but to embrace them. Since differences is what makes us unique is it well worth thinking about.

How Should You Criticize People On Your Blog?
That it is okay to give your opinion and criticize on your blog goes without saying. They key is how you do it. John Cass is convinced that it is best done through either positive or negative constructive criticism. Although offering advice this is mostly a post meant to be reflected on. Read it and make up your own mind. I did and I have and you should too as you may need to take a stand on this before you know it.

Tips for Dealing with Blogging Disagreements
Everyone who blogs for some time will experience that someone disagrees with them. Depending on how forcefully they make their points and where they publish it will you experience it as more or less stressful and upsetting. Either way do you have to deal with it. Even if it can also help you learn and make you wiser. Chris actually applies a structure that is not unlike mine when dealing with disagreeing comments, but since he presents and tackles it differently his tips also adds to it.

Dealing with Detractors: Responding to Negative Word of Mouth
The key to the success of your response is responding in the right manner. Andy Sernovitz lists the six steps he believes will help you when you are attacked publicly online. The premise is that you are actually in the right and that your reputation is on the line. Although written for companies it is sound advice and well worth taking note of. Not that you should assume that you or your company is ever attacked or unfairly criticized. However if you are, taking the right steps could prove vital.

Handling Negative Comments: Do You Have a Volunteer Fire Department?
Fear can be paralyzing and fear of negative comments is no different. Being a blogger does however also mean that you are not alone. The more of a conversational and relational blogger you are the less alone you are and the more people will be on your side if negativity indeed indeed should rear its ugly head. The best way to put your mind at ease is thus getting more involved on your own blog as well as on other blogs thus integrating yourself in the community.

We have to get along somehow and in fact most of us want to. Staying true to who we are, what we believe in and how we do things are equally important. That can lead to conflict. If we remember that we actually want to get along when we communicate does that make a world of difference. It is okay to disagree and to criticize. In fact it may be what is necessary for us to develop. How you do it is however not trivial. Being considerate and structured when criticizing or responding to criticism is essential. Actually being considerate means nothing more that considering that you neither are alone nor have patented the truth about everything. That others have something valuable to say and may not always be those doing things the wrong way. If there even is a wrong and a right way.

Sometimes people really are idiots and sometimes differences cannot be bridged, but you will get a lot further and learn a lot more if you don’t automatically assume that this is the case when someone disagrees with you or do things differently. Keeping this in mind and generally trying to be a good communicator when traveling the Blogosphere will in the time of need also decide who people side with if someone should try to discredit or directly attack you. It is thus a winning proposition all the way round when everyone try to be the best they can be when communicating.