The blogging 101 workshop, at Jobing.com on Monday was quite an experience. As always,  I ended up having a great learning experience myself. More on that later.

The topic, Using Blogging and Social Networking to Support Your Job Search, comes with a bunch of disclaimers. At the risk of seeming repetitive, I have to say that a blog will not and should not replace a resume. It may enhance your resume, but better still it gives you a way to rethink how you work on your resume. Or your reputation out there.

A resume, after all is a way to capture your reputation system on a sheet of paper, which is an odd thing to have to do in this day and age. That sheet of paper needs to become a living document, and not something that lives in a folder.

I happen to think that a blog is easier to maintain than a resume. Certainly much easier than a web site. (A few people in the audience had personal web sites. I do, too, and it’s a royal pain to update.) Indeed, a blog requires more care and feeding at the initial stage, but once you set up some good blogging habits, use a few simple tools and tricks, it’s not a huge chore.

Once you compare how limited you are with some of the existing tactics you use to define who you are, and what your potential is, a blog becomes a no-brainer.

Big thank you to Pat Elliott for getting me involved with the Scottsdale Job Network.