Rocket Science

One of the benefits of blogging is that I’ve had the opportunity to be self-reflective. I’ve taken the opportunity to post some things my personal life (ok, they’re mostly rants because I don’t have folks local to me yet that I can rant to all the time, my co-workers might call the men in white coats). And more interestingly, I’m using this site to document and share some of the work-related topics, tools and techniques I find interesting.

I’ve also complained complained before about how most of the posts I find that I want to write take more than an hour.

Recently I was reading an article in Fast Company and it brought together many of the things I think about when I write posts. Their original topic was viral messages, I think the elements they describe work for my blog posts in general. And their article helps to explain why I’m taking the time to write about the things I do. The authors, Dan & Chip Heath, contend that there are “three secrets”:

• Emotional: Good (viral) messages are emotional.
• Public Service: Good messages are also a “public service”, they help the user do something easier, they help the user solve a problem, and so on.
• Trigger: Good messages have a trigger, “an environmental reminder to talk about an idea.”

I think I’m writing many of my professional posts as a service–I’m trying to share the information, and I’m also trying to model a process. When I write many posts, I’m trying to include a trigger, where I can to stimulate involvement (ok that’s not working so well). And certainly my “rant on” posts have an emotional component.

Anyway that’s my 6-month-ish update on posting.

If you haven’t noticed recently I’ve posted quite a bit recently. I was reflecting on this feast and famine in posting and have thought I’d write down my thoughts about blogging, now that I’m a whopping 5 months in. (In fact I wrote so many posts in the last two weeks that I scheduled 5 of them to be published after I actually wrote them…just to spread the content out a little. And here I am writing more.)

• I think I’m still trying to find my voice, and what I want to post on. I’ve got lots of posts started but not completed. I’m using them as placeholders to remind me about something I wanted to post/remember in the future.
• It’s been easier than I thought it would be to write posts. Life/work get in the way, but it has been easier than I thought it would be to write regularly enough…so far.
• Why is it…that every post idea I’ve come up with in the last week will take me more than an hour to write and research? I’m still trying to figure this out. Many of my more recent posts have been “quicker”, but some like the one about Kosmix have taken a couple hours to write (and research, and find the tools I needed to make the screenshot and so on).

Well, that’s all for now.