Not long after I started my blog in 2004, I ran across someone who was calling himself a blogomist. Until that time I was still thinking of myself as a newspaper columnist who just happened to be writing on a blog.
I decided I would be a blogomist too and put it on my business card.
As people scan my card, they usually chuckle when they come to my self-proclaimed title. When you have a blog called FunnyBusiness you want people to laugh at what you write.
When I returned from my first Blogher Conference, I wrote about this decision in Blogomist vs. Citizen Journalist.
as I was updating the card, I hesitated on what I should call myself. Am I a journalist? a columnist? a citizen journalist? Or, a Blogomist?
I chose blogomist. Not just because,as my friend John thought, I was playing off of the word bigamist --I reminded him that I chose blogomist much as a biology professional would call themselves a biologist.
The blogomist trend has not taken off. My guess is, like my friend John pointed out, it does sound an awful lot like bigamist and maybe a bit pretentious as well.
Pretentious or not, I still prefer to think of myself as a blogomist.
There is a difference between job titles that end in "er" vs. those careers that end in "ist."The ists seem to signal advanced skills.
- teacher vs. learning specialist
- freelance writer vs. copy consultant
- manager vs. evangelist
- barber vs. hair stylist
- dietician vs. nutritionist
- doctor(technically not an "er" but it sounds like one,) vs. cardiologist
By choosing the little used blogomist term, I was trying to indicate that I was not a run of the mill person using blogging technology to share my world with the world.I was/I am trying to say I am a professional.
This is how I have parsed it out: bloggers include the entire spectrum of people who use blog technology to share their thoughts and blogomists are the people who are actually getting paid to blog or are considered an expert in the field of blogging.
Why not amateur blogger vs. professional blogger? Simply preference. It kind of reminds me of professional putt-putt players. It may be professional but few people take it as a serious profession.To me, blogging is a serious profession.
In writing about the five biggest mistakes that resume writers make, Heather Eager writes:
Include a Title for the Job You Want
Use a professional title for the position that you want. An improper job title will only serve to position you at a level far below the responsibility or salary level you are seeking to achieve. Including a job title can greatly increase the number of interview calls that you get for higher positions and improve your chances of clinching a higher salary – and when you start at a higher salary, your career growth is also accelerated.
However, at e-learning and central of the tutor,Tutortan says Beware of Title Inflation
Your fancy title might not mean very much.
The phenomenon responsible, as documented by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, is so-called "title inflation."
This describes the process by which a company which once had a handful of easily identifiable top jobs -- CEO, chief financial officer -- can now have a string of staff with the word 'chief' at the head of their job description.
Apart from other by now relatively well known examples such as chief technology officer, chief marketing officer and, in some places, chief diversity officer, such titles -- many pioneered in the tech industries -- can include chief talent officer, chief cultural officer, chief reputation officer and even chief geek.
This in part reflects a long-term process of corporate restructuring away from simple hierarchies, says Betsey Stevenson, professor of business and public policy at Wharton.
"People want to be distinguished in some way from everyone else, but in a flat organization there is less hierarchy and therefore less opportunity to be distinguished," she says.
This can be a problem for high flyers seeking to reach the top, for example those with MBAs.
"One good thing about hierarchy is you can climb a corporate ladder. If there is no ladder, there is nothing to climb."
Greg Scott at Jiibe has also been thinking about job titles. Some of the titles people shared:
People Development Group- replaces the HR department,Directors of First Impressions instead of receptionist, Director of Sales and Smiles and Implant Manager
The best I have seen has got to be “Implant Manager” for a curvaceous lady leading a small team of travel agents. These people worked in the offices of large company X, but were employed by a third-party organisation arranging all the travel for the employees of company X - hence they were “implanted” into the larger company, I suppose.
Turns out my friend John is not the only person who sees the similarity between a bigamist and a blogomist. Over at the Friendfinder blog, MunchinMatron 2 asked her friends to share sniglets- made up words that describe things or concepts that have no "offical" terms.One of her friends, EntranceMe said this:
Blogomist ~ A member having more than one blog under different names.
Does your title end in "er" or "ist" or do you think it's just a bunch of hooey?
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Comments
Not to nitpick
Some of your examples involve different licenses, different schooling, and/or different job requirements. A barber and a stylist have very different licensing requirements; a teacher works in a classroom but a learning specialist deals with the outlier cases in a smaller room; a cardiologist spends several years in educational programs beyond what it took for him to become a "mere" doctor. Trust me on this, you can't just hang a sign that says "cardiologist" outside your family practice clinic.
As for myself, I guess I'll make sure I present myself as a Research AnalYST with a website rather than a blogger......
hmmm
I now will think of myself as a member of the Blognoscenti.
~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs relentlessly at Time's Fool
Blognoscenti, hah
I love it.
~Denise
Fast Times @ Homeschool High & Flamingo House Happenings
Hmm, so many hats!
Well, this is the age of creating new words, new jobs, new careers that did not exist. I get your point about naming yourself. Tiltles are so defining for people--we can't live without them. However, I think the jury is still out on the final definitions for all of us crafting this new frontier of blogging. I for one will wait and see what shakes out in the final analysis...if there is such a thing. For now I am a blogher. Tomorrow is new and perhaps some other new name will present itself.
Love,
Babz
www.lovebabz.blogspot.com
my journal. my life.
Forever a lowly journalist
No matter how long I blog I will forever be a journalist first.
I know, I'm so old school.
Sorry, I'm late to the party
Sorry, I'm late to the party as always.
I would be wary of all these made up titles if I were you. I remember when the school system my mom worked for changed all the titles for their librarians from "librarian" to "media specialist." My mom was more than a little ticked for a couple of reasons, first because her degree was in library science (not media anything). Second because librarians have always dealt with a variety of media so the system's stated reason of "recognizing the broad range of skills of our staff by giving them a more accurate name" was so much bunk (either that or it showed a true ignorance of what librarians traditionally do).
The title of media specialist hasn't brought any great bonuses to the renamed staff in the 20-some years of its application. The title hasn't lead to larger salaries or increased the staff's respect in the schools. If anything, Media Specialist jobs are seen less as careers requiring professionals with masters degrees and more as the computer-lab-minding, DVD-loaning, overdue-fee-collecting jobs that any stiff could do. Which is stupid and wrong, but there you go.
Names may not matter for roses, but they do for careers. I wouldn't be so ready to throw off traditional titles like "journalist" unless you're willing spend as much time clarifying what you do and who you are, as you spend actually spend doing the thing that caused you to love what you do in the first place.
The Caffeinated Librarian [Blogger]