Having conquered the set-up of my own blog, I spent this morning learning my next blogging skill--better understanding RSS and learning how to turn on the feeds that would allow my site to be syndicated. Success! Syndication links are now visibile on my site (see the left sidebar).  If you want to know why this is important, you might want to read Alexandra Krasne's article in which she says:

"The philosophy (of Web 2.0) focuses on the idea that the people who consume media, access the Internet, and use the Web shouldn't passively absorb what's available -- rather, they should be active contributors, helping customize media and technology for their own purposes, as well as those of their communities."

For help I turned first to Mark Carr's Blogs for Orgs which is a great source of understandable, practical information on blogs.   For a a blog baby like me, Mark's site always takes me somewhere useful. The best resource I found was Fagan Finder: All About RSS, which cuts through all the junk you don't need to know (often with humor) and points the way.  I also checked out TechSoup where I found a number of short, to the point articles on blogs, all written in clear language with useful examples.  To my delight, their content has gotten much more up-to-date in the last three years, apparently through their use of outside content experts. Great idea, TS.

However, I am finding that it helps to not read too much all at once.  Rather, take this blog stuff one step at a time.  Experiment even.  Most of the steps you're taking can be changed or edited--so the risk is very low.  So far, it's fun. Find the next thing you need to understand, read about it, then try it out within your blog.  My next project is to select an RSS syndicator so I can begin to find other bloggers having charitable thoughts.