Adrian Miles writes about why blogging is interesting for documentary film makers, and summarizes the discussion into the following key points:

  1. to document, discuss, reflect and engage with your own practice
  2. to promote and build awareness around your current project
  3. to spread promotion and recognition across the life of the entire project, and not just post-release
  4. so you have a network identity (when someone Googles you, or your project, they find what you say about things first)
  5. to present work in progress (brief rough cuts, for example)
  6. to present parts or all of your footage that ends up on the floor
  7. to solicit, by invitation or discovery, new material (people find you - see 4) relevant to your project
  8. to develop your own network skills so that the leap from old to new is lessened
  9. transparency about your process, which complements the implicit ethics of documentary as a practice
  10. to provide another way of contributing to your community (of documentary filmmakers, and the subject or subjects of your documentary work)

I think these are equally interesting for all sorts of other projects, including my own research. One point he does not mention, but which I find important as I am approaching the completion of my dissertation, is to get into the habit of writing clear and concise short texts.