What I Think of Blog Awards

Blog Award Week is Coming

Recently, I participated in the 2010 Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom. I even had the opportunity to sponsor a giveaway for that extraordinarily enjoyable event. As a result, I had the opportunity to visit and read a whole fresh new (to me) collection of blogs.

My regular readers will remember that I enjoyed writing concise little reviews of the blogs I found especially noteworthy when I participated in the Blissdom Blizzard Bloghop hosted by my dear friend Household6Diva a few months back. I gave it some thought and prayer, and consulted with my awesome husband, and decided to take a slightly different approach in the aftermath of this most recent blog-hop.

I have been blogging for less than a year. On some days, it feels like I’ve been blogging for just a few months while on other days it feels like I’ve been blogging since I first had an email account years and years ago. Since coming into the blogging world, I have seen a number of blogs I follow receive “blog awards” and I have received a few myself. And this caused me to wonder what people think of them and what opinions people hold where blog awards are concerned.

A few awards stipulate in their “rules” that recipients must include several personal pieces of information and then pass on both the award and the rules to several other bloggers. To me, this stipulation always felt like the old “chain letters” of the pre-email days. I never liked those, frankly. It reminds me even more of the email chain letters that claim if you don’t forward them to so many people, you will experience “bad luck” or what-have-you. (Personal note: I don’t believe in luck.)

But by and large, I believe that blog awards are one way that a blogger can recognize another person. By nominating a blog for a blog award, I believe we are recognizing the person, or sometimes people, behind the blog. We are recognizing the effort, the heart, the spirit, and the mind that can produce a blog that brings us joy, or makes us think, or comforts us, or teaches us, or convicts us, or challenges us, or inspires us.

What I am saying is that while we may simply affix the word “award” to a 250 pixel x 250 pixel digital square that really isn’t an award, per se, calling it an “Award” makes the expressed sentiment seem more official. What the blog award is really saying is, “I really enjoy reading your blog. I recognize the time and effort you put into your blog. I find the content of your blog highly inspirational. Your blog stands out among other blogs I read. I am grateful for the things you share on your blog. I appreciate and value your uniqueness and your spark as seen through the medium of the internet.”

As a blogger, feedback like that is gratifying. It helps you, as a blogger, to realize that someone “gets” you, or felt joy, felt comfort, learned something, felt challenged, felt convicted, or felt inspired because they visited the blog you lovingly created and read what you wrote. It is recognition of some part of the meaning that you are attempting to convey. And then you get take that expressed sentiment and turn around and “pay it forward” to other bloggers.

For me, this makes blog awards stand out from the “chain mail” variety of electronic communications. When people nominate me for a blog award, they are not really “getting” or “taking” anything from me. They are giving in a positive way by offering recognition and feedback that does the soul good. And, they are giving me an opportunity to express the same kind of recognition to other bloggers.

So here is what we are going to do. In addition to my regular posts each day, I decided that I will award several blogs which I found especially noteworthy from the 2010 Ultimate Blog Party for the following awards:

Then YOU get to take part in my own little online experiment. I want you to nominate your favorite blogs for a brand new never before seen Blog Award! Reply to this post with your nominations – there are no limits. Next week, we’ll take the brand new award and hand it out to every blog that you nominate — we’ll pay some bloggy love forward and have a fresh, new 250 x 250 pixel to attach to that love.