Please Vote Navy

Yes. I have heard all the punchlines and jokes regarding what a contest on the internet is... but I am going to ask anyway.

Please, hit this link and vote in is this little popularity contest going on at the milbloggers website. You can do it for me, or for yourself if you want, but to be honest...

We need to do it for the folks in the Navy. It has been suggested I need to recommend you vote for the USNI Blog. I would recommend exactly that, but honestly, and I say this as a writer for the USNI blog - it isn't important whether USNI Blog wins or not.

What really matters here is that the Navy category gets an enormous number of votes, and the only way that happens in this tiny field of blogs is if this community goes all in. These are the choices, and based on frequency I think USNI Blog wins going away, but to each their own.

Navy Live - The official Navy blog. I read it because I know many of you don't. Yeah, one would think that an organization with a budget the size of the US Navy - never mind an organization with its own media shop - could produce something interesting more than 2-3 times a week.

The Sand Docs - The story of a Navy Forward Surgical Team in Afghanistan. I never even knew that blog existed before today.

Surfing Surgeon Stuck in the Sand - I'm guessing the name implies the context? Again, first time I saw this blog was today. Clearly Navy Medicine needs their own private blog directory.

US Fleet Forces Command Blog - Ready Fleet...Global Reach. Now we are talking, Admiral Harvey's Blog is fantastic. I've still never met Admiral Harvey, and he is one of only two Admirals in the Navy I believe I would really enjoy meeting (Pandolfe being #2).

USNI Blog - of the blogs mentioned, this one is updated most frequently and when I'm not busy fighting the Board of Directors - I like to think I contribute useful content there.

OK so clearly milbloggers is a military.com Army centric community focused on people centric content and issues. Nothing wrong with that. If 100 of the minimum 15,000 people who will visit this blog this week even knew about milbloggers having a voting contest like this before I discuss it in this post - I'd be shocked. That community just isn't this audience.

But that is why we, the little immature corner of the internet focused on Navy issues, needs you to vote. Eventually we are going to have to drag that bunch towards a more mature position of military affairs if the milblogging brand is ever going to mature into something relevant, and the only way I think we can do it is by representing ourselves.

So yes, you sitting at the desk at CSBA or CNA or RAND or staffer on Capital Hill or in the Pentagon or deployed overseas or in San Diego or Norfolk or Newport or Mayport or wherever you might come to ID from today - please hit this link and vote in this little popularity contest knowing it really is for a greater good.

Only you can turn the Navy category into one with enough size those Army dudes who run that show over there take note, because on Saturday when they have the milblogger conference - if the Navy has put out enough votes - it is going to help my friend at CHINFO Captain David Werner (also known as @NavyNews) inform the audience of Army nerds at the Milblogger conference on Saturday how the broad official and unofficial Navy social media community has left them and the rest of the military services in the dust.

Why? Simple, because we are more interesting, and we are more relevant. Unless you write for BlackFive or the Small Wars Journal, don't even think about suggesting otherwise.