How I became a blogger..

Thinking back to the first "contact" I've had with the world of blogging, it would have to be around and during the start of war in Iraq. Around that time news surfaced about Iraqis blogging their personal experiences with the war and reporting on the status of things in Baghdad, other news reports related to blogging mentioned groups in the US personally funding and sending their own reporters to cover the war in Iraq because they don't trust big media organizations to do that job. Looking at the two incidents one gets a good deal of the flavor of what blogging really is... a rather personal account of events, issues, etc. that range in audience from global to local to even the blogger her or himself in some cases. The other thing that becomes apparent is the sheer power of blogging where an individual can have the same publishing power as big media organizations on the web.

In Fall 2003 I remember my professor in a graduate class about office information systems asking if the students knew what a Blog is when we were discussing collaborative work. After a few seconds pause waiting for someone to speak up.. I provided a rather clumsy answer based on my understanding of a blog at the time, only to have a typical know-it-all, smart, experienced, in-his-mid-40's student speak up from the back of class with a proper definition.. and it was the fist time I knew blog stands for web log :) I kind of took issue with blogs.. I felt that they sort of crept and snuck on me as I consider myself to be semi-computer savvy. And I believed the media and technology that was in place at the time, such as good ole websites, discussion boards and forums, negated the need for this new kid on the block. Probably the real reason for this stance is the fact I was getting old :) change and newfangledness were getting harder for me to accept.

Fast forward to late 2004 someone very close to me started their own blog, that blog became part of Jordan Planet bloggers community which I quickly became addicted to reading every single post and comment published there, and occasionally adding a comment of my own. In May 2005 I signed up for a blogspot account, and after much contemplation this is my first official post. The blog will not have a set theme, it will contain observations on current happenings as well as random scribbles and thoughts. The blog needs a lot of work as I've done none whatsoever on it :) but at this point I just wanted to get it started I will be adding and fixing things up as I go along. Incase anyone's wondering, Doflah (or deflah/defleh in other dialects) is the Arabic word for Oleander :) an abundant shrub in my home country, Jordan.