Why I Blog

By Gaz under Announcements, Ramblings

So, last night I got back from my first (deliberate) weekend away from an internet connection in almost a year, to find not only had the whole Technorati Fave Exchange post I made a few days before gone completely wild, but that I’ve received my first blog meme tag from both Bill Toome, and Ian Hedges! Thank you both for the tag guys, and here are the 5 top reasons why I blog:

1. Catharsis: aka learn by teaching; that is, often when I’m wrestling with a problem (social or technical), or just peeved at the universe for being so lame today, I get a lot of mileage out of writing out my thoughts, and then editing the resulting stream of consciousness into a coherent whole. Often, by the time I’ve finished an article on something I was struggling with, I have a deeper understanding of my own point-of-view on the matter and can let go of much of the tension it was creating.
2. Meet like-minded people: Working from home is a lonely way of life, with no cow-orkers to trade anecdotes with, no car pools to share in, and no social gatherings of like minded individuals. Blogging is a community building exercise in many ways, and in time groups of us with similar outlooks will congregate in the comments on one anothers’ blogs. It’s how I get to trade punches with my peers without sitting in traffic to the office every day, and having to agree with my boss because he pays my wages not because he’s right
3. Freedom of Information: It’s a consciousness raising thing. Without a diversity of opinions to share in and disagree with, how can society learn to ignore the establishment, and instead reach their own conclusions by research and skeptical questioning? Equally, if I’ve pieced together the solution to a problem that someone else may be fighting with, I can post it on my blog to save them working from first principles. Hopefully, the time they save will sometimes be spent working on something that benefits me in the long run.
4. Online Presence: Professionally, I am defined by my online presence. IT in the 21st century is driven by the internet. We make business contacts, we buy, assemble, combine and ultimately resell information over the wire. My blog is me as far as people who might want to do business with me from the other side of the planet are concerned.
5. Documentation: My memory is terrible. I write everything down. And I really do mean everything (GTD was designed especially for me!). I hope my grandchildren will enjoy reading about my adventures along Route 66 in thirty years time, as much as I will enjoy jogging my own memory in thirty days

Having got that off my chest, I hereby tag:

1. Octavia at Lunarian Art, for being beautiful
2. Alex at Alex Shalman, for being inspirational edit: Alex already took part
   Elisabeth at EJCooksey, for being in the mybloglog widget at half of the blogs I frequent
3. Dragos at Edragonu dot Ro, for being on the same wavelength
4. Maia at Manila Mom, for being where I am heading in the Autumn
5. Frank at Tux Deluxe, for being prolific

There is an interactive tracker for the Why I Blog meme at soloseo.com if you’d like to see who else has participated.