Learning From Others: How do we increase collaboration?

One of my fundamental values is cooperation and working in partnership with others. I think that by sharing ideas, brainstorming with others and learning from one another we can create a greater end product. Because of this value I spent some time this week seeing what other people are blogging about how they are communicating. Here are three blogs I found and what I learned from them:

Katya’s non-profit marketing blog

I found this blog on a list of the best non-profit blogs and I like it. It has been around for six years and has continued to develop with the industry. It was interesting comparing the difference between some of the first blog and the later ones. Throughout the blog, Katya does a good job of sharing simple ideas. Each of the posts is relatively short and focuses on just one idea. She also uses a personable style that I felt I could relate to.

Beth’s Blog

I am looking forward to following this blog. A couple of things really jumped out for me. First, it deals with issues of measurement and data analysis. These are two things that I think a lot of non-profits hesitate to talk about because it requires a different skill set. I also like how she organized the blog. Each of the posts is categorized and it is visually easy to look at it.

Seth Godin’s Blog

I like that Seth’s blog focuses on a variety of issues from innovation, to types of customers to holding events. This diversity of subject matter is interesting and allows for different types of people to connect with the blog.

Each of the bloggers, as well as the many others that I have been checking out, provide great resources to the community and their writers are a wealth of knowledge. A couple of trends I observed:

• Many of the blogs focus on non-profit’s presence on the Internet and in social media rather than the operations of the organization. 
• Almost all of the bloggers are consultants who are also trying to sell their services. How does this affect collaboration and idea sharing?

What do you think about these blogs? Do you read other blogs in this field? How can we continue to push for online collaboration?