Call me a bit slow to catch on – but when it comes to blogging, like many other things in life, it isn’t until one actually participates that the true benefits become clear.

Until earlier this year, when professional circumstances encouraged me to attempt my first blog, I’d considered this activity to be something geeks do, other geeks read and it all ends up as cyberspace trash.

However, I am now more inclined to see that indeed, blogging has its values.

For one, the initial process encouraged me to clarify and organise my views and then to indulge in writing them down in my own voice for others to read – as a writer of articles and columns, I am not accustomed to that luxury. And, in doing so I started to ‘think’ more about any other views that may be lurking in the depths of my mind and be of interest to others.

But more importantly, the fact that my blog posts have elicited responses has awakened me to that mass cyberspace community out there. What an exciting prospect that is to engage in a form of social interaction that encourages good honest opinion sharing without any need for the face-to-face niceties that so often inhibit us from saying what we really think.