I Am what I Blog! September 3, 2008
Posted by Mario Sundar in Miscellaneous, Technology I Love.Tags: stevejobs
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Every time I fall off the blogging bandwagon, when life and work takes its toll on my enthusiasm to blog, I remind myself. Why do I blog? It’s not easy. It takes a couple of hours every day in addition to daily work. And, then I realize. I love the topics I write about.
What reinforced that message in me was this HBS piece “Focus on what matters most to you” by Stewart Friedman, founding director of Wharton’s Leadership Program. The post stresses on themes that Steve Jobs stressed on at his famed Stanford commencement address, which is, do what you love most.
Now, this may apply to your dream job, but I’d like to use similar criteria to identify your dream blog. Every blog should be only about the stuff that your dreams are made of. Else, it’s not worth spending the extra couple of hours each day.
Couple of questions to ask yourself as a blogger?
1. How do you define success?
Initially I defined success by comparison with my peers on Technorati. But then, I realized I lost the passion of blogging to a mere fear of staying in the rankings. These days, I define success by the # of well thought out comments I receive (”the conversation”) and the # of page views each post generates. Both are a key indicator of the communities I foster around topics I’m most passionate about – whether it is corporate blogging or technology around LinkedIn, Apple, etc…
2. Is your blog changing the world around you?
Again, the larger question would be what’s your blog’s impact? One of the challenges with a blog’s vastly dissipated list of topics is that you lose focus. With Marketing Nirvana, if I can have an impact on one area it’d be corporate blogging. In addition, I’ve been able to add some personality to the blog with my posts on technology I love.
Couple of best practices to follow as a blogger (again culled from Stewart’s post)
1. Be Real
2. Be Innovative
So, my question to every blogger is “How do YOU define your blog’s success?”
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Like you I judge success on comments and hit count – but probably the other way around! I’m a hit count junkie – so bad I even built a FireFox extension for keeping me informed of my hit count
Comments first and foremost. Second, if there’s an email follow up asking for more interaction. And third, if my post is linked to from some other blogs.
It’s a great question. In the case of my blog, my only goal is to be helpful. Were I to be a full fledged media property like The Inquisitr or someone, I might have a different measure.
@Mike,
# of pageviews is a good source of motivation for me
@Chris,
I’m impressed with the constant level of interaction you’ve fostered on your site. It’s definitely something I aspire to emulate.
[...] Sundar shares similar experiences with respect to blogging in his post: I Am what I Blog. Mario explains that one of his measures of blogging success is the number of well thought out [...]
Excellent post and reality check for bloggers. I always find a passion to keep blogging, yet need the discipline to stay on track with what those key drivers are.
also, curious as to how you manage those critical clashes between professional demands vs. information to remember/cite when you blog. any tips?