A leading venture capitalist and widely read blogger, Fred Wilson commented this morning about typos in his blogging at AVC.
Referencing a post of his from yesterday, Wilson shared his philosophy.
“A number of readers let me know about the typo, which I very much appreciate.
But for some reason, I am not all that motivated to change it.
I make typos all of the time in my emails and texts and other informal communication.
And I am increasingly seeing AVC as another form of informal communication.
AVC is me. I am human. Humans are imperfect. So AVC should be imperfect.
So there it is. I am letting it stand. ”
Wilson’s philosophy is close to mine.
I’ve always viewed blogging as a conversation. A conversation at a social function associated with business.
I hear (read) something and reply with my thoughts. The right people in the conversation and I learn things – and my reputation and relationships grow.
Heading out to bar for a social gathering with business colleagues, I don’t prepare to make sure I use the right words. I do my best to add to the conversation and enjoy myself in the informal communication.
So there are typos on my blog (more than on most blogs). I do my best to correct the ones I see, especially when I see my post being shared and commented upon across social media. But I don’t get too wigged out by errors.
No question that colleagues in LexBlog see me as the CEO needing to be as professional as possible in my writings.
Leading a legal blogging community of 30,000, there may be a standard that needs to be maintained in the legal world. (more on this in an upcoming post)
I don’t know, I see blogging as a style thing – to be comfortable and authentic in your approach – and to be who you are, everyone else is gone.
I’ll give this more thought and see what I can do.
But for now, I am probably with Wilson. I’ll make some typos. Readers will sometimes let me know. Other times the typos, and even substantive errors, will stand.