Blogs have edge over Books

                                                                 

The author is of the opinion that in the realm of management following a good blog might be much fruitful than reading a management book. Though there are many reasons for that but fundamentally it’s the very basic nature of blogs and books that gives advantage to the blog over the books.These can be summed as follows:-


• Blogs are always latest and books are always old:- One must understand that the realm of business management is very dynamic and changes very fast. It takes many years to write a book,hence a book can never be latest,by the time a book undergoes its idea phase and by the time it comes to publication there is always a gap of few years .Even the latest of the books will talk about something that had taken place some 4-5 years back. In contrast to this a blog is always latest,fresh and captures the present situation in a better way.

• Blogs are to the point where as books have a high degree of redundancy:- Blogs are always to the point but on the other hand books have high degree of redundancy. A book needs to be of few hundred pages, as a result of which even if the author does not want he has to repeat certain stuffs end no. of times. This makes the book boring after some time.

• Comments add value to blog:- Comments add lot of value to a blog,it helps in understanding it better,gives additional information and can also add counter views. No such facility is available in book.(Though these days stuffs like book reviews can be of some help but they cannot be as instant as comments)

• A blog has a very high degree of variability where as books are generally written on a single idea:- An author can write an end no. of posts on various issues on the same blog.Thus following such blogs give eclectic knowledge. In contrast just take any management book such as Positionong,Judo Strategy,Hard Ball etc and you will see that it’s the same central idea that keeps on repeating itself.


• Blogs are small ,books are too large:- last but not the least books are so large that one has to think twice whether to go for it or not, in contrast blogs are small enough to at least not de motivate you from reading it.

(Well having said this author will like state few facts based on his experience:-
1> One should not jump directly to blogs. Initially one should try to read few good books first
2> The given analysis is more applicable for business management related stuffs.
3> Views are personal)