Pew Survey on Blogging - Training Professionals Far Behind

Found via Joho Blog - Pew has a new report on a national survey of bloggers and blogging (PDF Link Directly). Interesting information:

• Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog.
• Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
• 37% of bloggers cite "my life and experiences" as a primary topic of their blog
• More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30.

The 39% seems very high to me. It especially seems high because my experience at Training 2006 suggested that very few people in Corporate Training read blogs.

Question asked of 200 Training Professionals - "Where do you learn about what’s new in learning?"

• Publications, e.g., Training Magazine, CLO, etc. – 99%
• Blogs – 2.5%

Granted that much of what is being blogged these days is by teenagers telling their friends what they did today. But still it makes us seem a bit behind?

Why is our writing and readership level so low? A comment on a previous post by John Cleave:

I "use" blogs frequently via Google searches, but have never managed to integrate them into my daily practice, because there are only so many hours in a day.

I would suspect that John has hit the nail on the head. We are all so busy, how much time can we spend on Scanning/Reading as a way to stay up on what's happening? An hour a week? Two hours? If so, then what sources should I look at? CLO Magazine or a blog?

Personally, I've come to find that my Scanning/Reading activities are equivalent across magazines and blogs. Further, while I'm still a person who sits on airplanes reading trade magazines, I find myself doing more and more of my Scanning Online so that I can take advantage of Personal Learning Strategies.

Keywords: eLearning Trends