I’ve decided to create a new blog to post my experiences Walking to Cure Diabetes this year.  In keeping with the “Musings” tradition I’ve started, I named that blog The Musings of a JDRF Supporter.

There are two main reasons I decided to create a blog specifically for the walk.  The first reason is that I want to use my new Palm Pre Plus to live-blog pictures and brief comments during the walk itself.  Unfortunately, the current selection of blogging applications for the Pre are rather few in number, and I shudder at the thought of trying to use the Movable Type client on the Pre’s web browser.  (The browser is good, but I’m not convinced that it’s that good!)  As such, I determined that my best bet for live-blogging the walk was to create a WordPress blog.

The other reason I’m doing this is because I’m trying to convince JDRF — either on the national or local level — that the blogosphere is an as-yet untapped resource for them in terms of raising awareness of both their organization in general and the walk in particular.  When I contacted them about putting my fund-raising thermometer on my blog (which they don’t support) or getting images to use (the national organization ended up referring to my local chapter), I realized this didn’t appear to be a common request, which I find odd.

I understand that their focus is mainly on supporting MySpace and Facebook, which seems to be a common practice these days.  But in many ways, I still think blogs offer a level and depth of promotion that social networking sites don’t always offer.  Blogs offer the opportunity for synchroblogs (also called blogswarms and blog carnivals).  They offer the opportunity to post a lot of informative information about type 1 diabetes and the research being done to improve treatment and even find cures.  In effect, it’s a way to generate more interest and support by being informative.  I think there’s a bit of value in that.

So I’ve created my blog to showcase some of the things that can be done.  Hopefully, some folks at JDRF will see it and be interested in getting more bloggers involved in future years.