Help! In Need Of A New Name For Blogging

Published by J.T. on March 20th, 2008 in Blogging | 44 Comments

I'm working with a sharp group of Communication majors from the University of New Hampshire right now. Honestly, their enthusiasm each week for the assignments I've given them as part of the unpaid internship they're participating in has been fantastic. So, imagine my surprise at a recent team meeting where I had asked them to research, compile and come prepared to discuss a list of popular blogs read by their peers. The conversation went like this:

Me: "Okay, so what are the top blogs college students are reading?"

Them: Silence.

Me: "What's up? Did you have trouble with the exercise?"

Them: "No. We just couldn't find any blogs that they read."

Me: "What? Why?"

Them: "Well, everyone we asked said they don't read blogs because they are just silly rantings by people about their personal lives."

Me: "Are you kidding? But we're planning to create a blog as part of this internship project."

Them: "We know, we needed to talk to you about that J.T. – Can we call it something else? Because all our friends said they won't read a blog and it's kind of embarrassing to say that's what we are working on."

I was shell-shocked. You see, I only stumbled across the power of reading and writing for blogs in the last year. The truth is, it was actually Ryan and Ryan from EmployeeEvolution.com who got me hooked. Thus, while I can see how blogging isn't fully embraced by the older generations yet (Gen X and above), I never considered that the younger generations might actually be AVOIDING them.

The session with my team turned into an hour-long tutorial on the upsides of reading and contributing to blogs. By the time we were done I was convinced they had 'seen the light' and would be ready move forward, but instead, they said something to this effect:

"Okay J.T., we see how the blog we're creating is going to benefit students and recent grads, but that makes us even more certain we'll have to call it something else. Trust us."

And I do trust them, so we decided to all separately brainstorm alternative terms for blogging about career development. The problem is, I'm coming up short. I reached out to friends and family, but nobody's given me squat to work with. As I mentioned, these interns are really talented, so you know they are going to show up with some great terms when they get back from Spring Break in Acapulco next week. (They promised they'd work on this while they were there – I should believe them, right?)

So, can you all help me? I'd be grateful for some ideas so I don't go to our next meeting without at least one decent term.

Anyone?