My history with blogging

I have a fairly extensive history working with social media and creating digital content. I've been on Twitter since 2011, I didn't start using it in earnest until 2014.
using Facebook socially since I was an undergraduate freshman in 2005, and though I've owned an account on

As far as blogging is concerned, I'm a very active blogger. I had been writing my own blog since around 2013 or so, but haven't kept it up much lately, with a notable exception last month. Last summer, I was brought in as an intern to write for a new local branch of Baseball Prospectus, to which I contribute a weekly column.This opportunity launched me into being hired as a staff writer at Brew Crew Ball, the Brewers blog that is part of the SB Nation network of sports blogs. You can find my author page here.

Through my blogging and, by extension, through my use of Twitter to engage with readers, fans and other writers, I have been able to become a part of a nationwide community of baseball fans that includes some of the most influential voices in baseball media. I have been interviewed for pieces being written at other sites like Beyond the Box Score and Purple Row, and I have been invited to join the staff at sports and humor blog, Crooked Scoreboard. I recently recorded the first episode of a podcast with two other writers, one a Beyond the Box Score columnist living in New Jersey and the other a Baseball Prospectus writer in Boston by way of Chicago. Through my use of digital content and social media, I have opened up myself to a world of opportunities to advance my hobby/second career.

Given the experience I have had, I would say one of the greatest potential benefits to digital content creation is the opportunity to expand your network and to create opportunities for yourself in your social life and in your career. In our digital age, the ability to have a record of the things you've created will almost serve as a resume for people. In the Jenkins article we read today, he spoke of promoting a "participatory culture" -- one with low barriers to creating and sharing content, a high amount of support and social interactivity, and one in which all feel free to share and collaborate, even if they do not actively participate.

Of course, one of the pitfalls to having that permanent record of your online creations is that when you create something that is inappropriate or offensive, it doesn't go away, no matter how hard you try. That's why another part of the participatory culture in Jenkins article, the presence of a mentor to guide younger users, is important. It is vitally important for students to understand that the things they create and share with the public become can permanent very, very quickly. An example of this is this article about cyberbullying, posted by my friend Nic at Sports Illustrated's The Cauldron. Here, thre are several examples of very nasty tweets directed at women sportswriters that have since been deleted, but are not immortalized in a very public way through screenshots. Should any potential future employer stumble upon these, it would be very difficult for these young people to find and keep a position.