Every Dot Connects

Following my recent post about the online mistreatment of women bloggers, my colleagues at Every Dot Connects pointed out the W-List: Gathering a List of Outstanding Women Bloggers. What a great idea! Our own Connie Reece is on the list, which is so appropriate. If you knew how hard Connie works, you wouldn’t be surprised.

Essential in the new economy – where we often work from home, a virtual office, or a third space – is the need to create communities where we gather to work and play. Every Dot Connects is one of those. We learn from each other and collaborate constantly on a variety of projects and topics.

The W-List is a great venue for highlighting just some of the many talented bloggers, who just happen to be women, and to create a community across the world. Invariably, someone out there will take offense to women being so assertive. Yes, unfortunately, some of those guys still exist, and they, too, have found their way into the blogosphere.

Just like the strong women who have made every other major advance in civilization possible, these women of the W-List can help pioneer the way for others into this exciting, possibly lucrative, and certainly challenging arena.

So, how does this tie in to the abusive behavior of some toward women in the blogosphere? There is strength in numbers. One lonely guy, who doesn’t have appropriate social behavior on line, might be able to sway one female blogger, but probably not a larger group. Although most women I’m around can handle themselves very well, thank you, it is understandable when someone is affected by abuse from an anonymous source.

The real value of the list is the promotion of skilled, talented, hard-working writers, who happen to be women. The strength in numbers that comes from creation of community is an added benefit. I say yes to both! Congratulations to Liz Strauss for her good work on this.

~Mike Chapman