When Robert Hruzek announced his WILF theme for December, What I Learned From the Generosity of Others, my immediate reaction was, this will be the easiest blog post I ever had to write.

For me, the generosity of bloggers has led to wonderful and unexpected changes in my life. Although I’ve experienced this generosity in small ways, the cumulative effect has been huge. As a group, the bloggers I have the good fortune to know are in a class by themselves when it comes to giving. Here are just a few examples. If I tried to list them all, you’d be here reading all day.

Luke GedeonWhen I was forced to miss SOBCon 07, Liz Strauss took the time to give me my own mini-convention recap at Ogilvie Center in Chicago. Here was a blogging legend taking time to make me feel welcome and part of the community. She inspired me to improve and grow as a blogger. Joanna Young persuaded me Lillie Ammannto use Twitter and critiqued my first e-newsletter, even though she is somewhat of a “competitor”. In my old b2b world, such generosity would have been unthinkable. Another high profile blogger, Wendy Piersall, took an interest in my business cartoons and gave me a platform to talk about them on her popular Sparkplugging site. When I ran into a wall at my humor blog, Scrambled Toast, Robert Hruzek and George Angus, two men with better things to do, rushed to the rescue and are now re-energizing the blog with one brilliant idea after another. Barbara Rozgonyi, a PR specialist, taught me about podcasting and the art of interviewing, and gave me a chance to promote my Amazon book reviews on her blog. And all just because she is nice. Luke Gedeon came out of nowhere to help me reach 100 comments on a single post. Karen Swim is helped me learn how to use Skype and recently offered to help me on a ticklish client problem, even though she is a “competitor”. Noted author David Meerman Scott actually made a point of thanking me for reviewing his books. How cool is it when one of your favorite authors turns out to be a total class act as well? Speaking of authors, Lillie Ammann recently did an interview here to promote her book. Self interest? Sure. But generosity? Totally. Lillie didn’t go through the motions – she put serious thought into answers that are certain to help budding authors. That’s what I call generous. Rosa Say and the bloggers at Joyful Jubilant Learning welcomed me into their community with open arms, even though most if not all of them are far more accomplished writers. Jeanne Dininni, one of the busiest writers I know, writes comments here that are frequently longer and more informative than my posts, and even some of her own posts!

Now, this is just a handful of pixels in a much, much larger picture. I won’t even get into how David Zinger set up a writing project to raise money for charities, or how Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton’s Age of Conversation projects involve hundreds of bloggers helping children, or how nearly 13,000 bloggers around the world raised consciousness about poverty for Blog Action Day.

Karen SwimEvery one of these kind acts has made me a better blogger, a better writer, a better marketer, and I hope, a better person. It’s not reading blogs that improves quality of life, it’s getting to know the people behind the blogs. I’ve never been around a professional group of people more eager to help, more generous with its time, and more genuinely concerned about its peers. I’m proud to be part of it, and thankful to Robert for giving me an opportunity to say so!Geoerge Angus

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