The Grand Experiment of Blogging

This morning, Mark Blevis wrote a free-form blog post, because he was encouraged by Chris Brogan to do so. My smart friends have motivated me to finally come out and do what I’ve needed to do for a while. It might be a clunker, it might be imperfect, but I need to say it, so I can keep going. Thanks, fellas!

A few months back, I announced on here that I was shifting the focus of my blog to talking about education and technology. I thought it was great that, after 3 years of blogging, I’d finally be able to say I had a “focus”.  After all, that’s what I’d been hearing more and more of from the blogging gurus – you should have a focus on your blog, certain topics that you exclusively talk about. The conversation needs to revolve around something, so you can build a community of interest.

That’ll teach me to listen to gurus.

Once I started in on my new spin, a couple of things started to happen. I started to struggle to find topics, so I wasn’t posting that often. Not that there isn’t a whole lot going on in the world of education and tech right now, because there is. I just haven’t yet found my voice in it. My conversations on the topic are taking place elsewhere right now. Across meeting room tables,  in my classroom, and so on. That’s where I am with it, and I’m totally fine being there.

But the biggest thing that happened is my community went away. Oh sure, a few stuck around (thank you!) but I realized that even though people were still reading, they weren’t commenting much anymore. I miss the conversation we were having.

So that’s why I’m coming back.

My personal blog started out being a dumping ground for all the stuff that swirls around in my head. It was an experiment. I have learned a lot, like that I love to write more than just about anything. I’ve gotten much better at it along the way, too. This space is my playground, where thoughts and ideas can come to sit, and where you can drop by, grab a coffee, and we can get to know each other.

At some point, I started to get self conscious about it. I started to over-analyze what I was doing here and I decided to try and improve upon it.

Well, it didn’t work for me. I miss you too much. The swirl in my head has started up again, and I don’t feel like I have any place to get it out. That sounds pretty silly, considering that this is MY space. I can do whatever I want with it.

And that’s really the point of this blogging thing, isn’t it? To create a space where one can talk about the ideas, and concerns, and stories inside one’s head; where we can share those ideas, and concerns, and stories with one another.

As of today, I’m stepping back in. I’m still going to write about education sometimes, because it’s a big part of who I am, and as I learn, I want to share that with you. But you’ll see me getting back to my old self a bit more too, writing about spirit, and productivity and social media, and video, and whatever I happen to be all riled up about at the moment.

I hope you’ll open the door again, and join me as I continue my grand experiment. Thanks for being here.

[photo credit: Runs with Scissors on Flickr]