Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. — Henry Van Dyke
I’ve toyed with the idea of having a website/blog for at least two years and have decided to confront my two biggest fears:
- I have nothing new/useful to say that hasn’t been said already.
- Because the barrier to entry is so low, there’s 47 different things everyone already expects from a blog and millions of ways to configure and optimize it. (This is where analysis paralysis kicks in.)
One has to start somewhere, so here I go!
Things that Motivated Me
- Most professionals in my industry have blogs and use them as a way to share their insights and knowledge with the community.
- Seeing posts such as Bad Managers Talk, Good Managers Write helped convince me that it’s worth my time to make an effort to practice writing.
- Many of my colleagues, Phillip Andreason, Reid Evans, and Cameron Presley are already blogging.
Some training videos from Pluralsight gave me a nudge to get started as well…
- Get Involved! — being a part of the larger tech community via social media, conferences, and blogging
- Career and Survival Strategies for Software Developers — your website is part of your personal and professional brand
- Building a Successful Blog — introductory course on the basics of blogging
Also to some degree, Jeff Atwood’s concept of “do it in public” challenges me to put myself out there for better or worse.
If nobody knows you did {x}, did you get all the benefits from doing {x}?
Tips that Resonated with Me
- Care enough to register your own domain and pay for hosting.
- Care enough to have control over the content that will become your personal brand.
- Realize that even though you’re not a mover/shaker, you care enough about your community to share your knowledge and opinions.
What Can Readers Expect?
As of this post, my Evernote tag count for “Blogging Ideas” is at 46. Some of those are simple off the cuff ideas or observations I had that may or may not be fleshed out into longer essays; some may simply remain starters for conversations.
As the tagline of my site suggests, expect most of the posts to pertain to software development and group fitness. Hopefully the category and tagging system will keep my readers from being annoyed as I mingle topics. (I imagine many developers won’t care to know what I think of the latest BODYJAM music, and fellow RPM instructors probably aren’t interested in Kanban.)
I chose a full WordPress-backed blog — as opposed to Tumblr or Google Plus — so that I could have more control over my content, and so that the posts could vary in length.
Closing Thoughts
As Denise Jacobs mentioned in the .NET Rocks! podcast about getting creative: The inner critic shows up in different forms (all of which have stricken me before)…
- Perfectionism
- Procrastination
- Comparing yourself to others
Although I strive to do as well as I can in any personal endeavor…
- I realize perfection is relative, and I will make mistakes (which is okay).
- Making myself just start ultimately helps give me the momentum I need.
- It’s not about how good/bad, smart/dumb, etc. I appear relative to others; it’s about what I can share with others to build a community.
Thanks for reading!