Uncle!

I love Monday morning. A fresh start to a new week of possibilities.

Coffee is ready and it’ll be a least a couple of hours before the phone starts to ring so it’s time to catch up and prioritize.

I rip through email first, categorizing, prioritizing and making immediate schedule adjustments as necessary.

Then, a high speed pass through the SOCNETS to do the same. A quick peek at new friend requests, messages, comments and other baubles. Categorize, prioritize and take action where immediately necessary.

Another cup of coffee and it’s time to open FeedBurner for my morning reads.

WTF? Are there really 280 bits of high quality “conversation” published by 30 writers that I absolutely MUST process before I can produce original thought of my own?

And what of thoughtful commentary? How many thoughtfully crafted responses can I contribute in support of all the hard work these writers are doing?

Most of them don’t even know who I am, and likely don’t give a rat’s ass if I ever comment on their blog, but I can’t be the only reader who feels this way. These bloggers are ALL hoping for comments which move their ideas forward or give them new perspectives to help fine tune their original thought, which is a whole ‘nuther story.

But how?

How do we readers give appropriate attention to the conversations that interest us when the sheer proliferation is so comically overwhelming?

I’ve done it by trimming down my must-read list to a select number of writers. Unfortunately I know I’m cutting some excellent reading material out of my daily information stream by doing this, but what else can I do? Just as importantly, what can we all do to create a more effective channel of information sharing or dialogue through blogging?

Consolidation.

Commonly accepted blogging strategy has adopted the “more is better” philosophy when characterizing a successful blog. A serious blogger must publish daily at bare minimum, and more is better. The more one publishes the mo better.

I won’t include bloggers whose work is tied to market events and current events. We look to them for immediate reactions to breaking news. We know what we’re getting into with blogs like this and have the ability to jump in where we have a particular interest.

But when it comes to ideas and strategies, I’ve come to the conclusion that I simply can’t do justice to the number of blogs and bloggers out there whose work requires careful consideration before making a thoughtful contribution.

When fifteen or twenty of these blogs land in my reader every week day, I’m compelled to key on the few who are most focused on my particular areas of interest, and who acknowledge my contribution, even when we might disagree.

I’m not here to say that my particular contribution is critical to each bit of the conversation, but I’m willing to bet that the higher profile bloggers out there would like to think the other high profile bloggers are paying attention. I’m here to tell you, they can’t possibly do it in any kind of consistent fashion without a fundamental change in the way bloggers publish.

If the daily blogger could consolidate her work into two or three articles each week, would it raise the quality of participation in the conversation?

Would this enable bloggers to pay more attention to the work being done by their contemporaries, resulting in more thoughtful and regular commentary?

Is there too much ego at stake for bloggers to focus on quality instead of quantity?