The 1st Post: from course requirement to ???

Today I visited a few online blogs focused on environmental topics and geared my visits towards sites from more reputable sources. My aim was to find a few sites that had credentialed, or maybe seasoned, writers. Flash and splash was not my interest, but content, quality writing, and topics of interest became important qualifiers.

The New York Times environment blog "Green: A Blog About Energy and the Environment" is organized within their online newspaper and the blog feels as though it is one of the columns one would read from a print paper. "A trustworthy source" is my first feeling and impression. The posts read as a news story -- with information and facts and quotes -- but succinct and in a first-person narrative.

Yale Environment 360 was another visit. This had much more graphic appeal and offered a rich display of choices from which to follow posts and articles. The posts were very in-depth, offered a length greater than a couple paragraphs, and presented each screen view with a logical and well-thought out arrangement.

Next, I discovered Inhabitant and enjoyed the features that displayed a variety of genres -- from architecture to automobiles. Treehugger was another blog that I was already familiar. Its organized with a rich volume of articles and posts, but many of the individual pieces are short and snappy. Some others I visited were decidedly not to become a part of my "bookmarks."

After rereading the Environmental Communications course syllabus several times to understand the requirements for the class, it became apparent that the best route to pursue was to create my own blog site.  This idea was not to compete necessarily with the sites I had seen,  but to establish my own outlet that could help hone my writing skills and document my ruminations and interests in a journal-like manner. It is this where I sense our instructor's true desire lay with his students -- to get us out in the world, writing, exploring, creating open dialogue to discuss the world's concerns. The connect of a blog to my own editorial duties for Friends of Kebyar and Taliesin Fellows publications and deeper interest in authoring books and articles in the future captured my attention as well.

It made sense. Where I'll find the time, I cannot say.  But now after a few hours I've established a space on Blogspot, it's time for me to go back and revisit that site by Yale's School of Forestry and glean some ideas...