the corner office

Hey ho, it's my blogging anniversary today! I started "blogging" privately back in June 2003, but I didn't go public until October last year. This is my 490th post since then, which makes me fairly profilic (that's a charitable way of putting it).

Now's as good a time as any to reflect on my blogging experience. When I started blogging, I had a few objectives:

1. I wanted to keep a personal diary/history of my life. I'd kept a written diary on and off over the years, and these days I type faster than I write.
2. I was interested in the concept of keeping a diary online, and in public. An experiment in a new social phenomenon, you could say.
3. I wanted a soapbox whence I could foist my opinions onto the world.
4. I wanted to participate in an online community - in particular, the Notes/Domino community.
5. I wanted to use my blog to share technical content and help others.

I knew that this was broader in ambit than most blogs, and I knew this lack of focus would cost me readers. I resolved from the beginning that I wouldn't try to build a readership. That's a safe approach, since it's hard to become disillusioned or disappointed if it then comes to pass that nobody actually reads your blog!

There's another side to that, too. It may sound funny, even pretentious, but in many ways I feel that I'm writing for the future, too. Certainly, for me to look back in years and decades to come and remind myself of who I was (this is usually a good thing, for a host of reasons). I also know that I've always been curious about my parents' and grandparents' and great-grandparents' lives, and if I'm lucky enough to have sprogs and grandsprogs and great-grandsprogs of my own, then perhaps one or more them will be curious about me. They could just as easily not give a toss, but if they do, then this now-narcissistic endeavour is ultimately for them. Objectives (1) - (3) are for future as much as current readers.

So, have I succeeded in meeting my objectives? Well, I haven't been particularly meticulous in my diary-keeping. That may be influenced by an awareness that I do have a readership who'd get really bored if I did, but it also has to do with the fact that I just couldn't be arsed. Between that which I do blog, and my commentary and observations on various issues, I think I paint an OK picture of what my life is like. I can't complain. Objective achieved.

(In fact, I learned within days of going live with my blog, that the "day in the life" aspect wasn't just for the future, but right now, too. My sister, for example, lives in another hemisphere, and got a chance to share in my life in a way that had never happened via the usual email and phone calls. That, hands down, is the most serendipitous result of my blogging.)

As time passed, I've become fairly outspoken on various political and social and religious issues. I suspect I've offended, annoyed, insulted and chased away more readers because of this than for any other reason. I've often wondered whether I should leave the politics out of it - I'm not arrogant enough to believe that my opinions have caused anyone to re-examine theirs. But still, to the extent that I want my blog to be representative of who I am and what matters to me, I'll keep doing it. So in the soapbox stakes, objective accomplished and then some.

In terms of participation in the Notes/Domino community, it's been a resounding success. A more decent bunch of techies and geeks, I could not imagine. I've been fortunate to be able to interact with some really intelligent and clued-up people, and hopefully some of it has rubbed off on me ;-). Learning, networking, interacting: objective accomplished.

(I should also say that I was surprised to end up as part of the South African blogging community - the political, the technical, and the plain interesting. I hadn't given that much thought when I started out - least of all because back in mid-2003 there were very, very few South African blogs out there. But that's changing, and again, I get to rub virtual shoulders with and plunder content from some very cool fellow Sefricans).

The one area where I haven't achieved what I set out to do, though, is sharing technical content. I had no plans to become a "technical resource" in the way that some blogs are, but I wanted to share what I could. I've dropped a few technical tidbits and I've seen Google serve these to the masses, but on the whole, I had intended to share more code, publish more technical content, and in general, give more back. What can I say? Something to focus on in the next year, perhaps. I've realised that it takes a lot of work and effort, far more than it takes to fire off a quick opinionated blog post. I have far, far more admiration for those who do make that effort, 'cause it's hard. Respect.

The main thing I've learned from a year of blogging is that it isn't about publishing into a vacuum. Despite my comments about not chasing readers, I'm lucky enough to have built a fairly (OK, very) small readership, split between Notes/Domino bloggers, fellow South African bloggers, and friends and family. But that's good enough for me. It keeps it personal. My motives for blogging might be selfish, but whenever I write, I'm very aware that what I write is being read by an audience who for whatever reasons, find my blog interesting enough to follow, and for that I'm grateful.

So in a nutshell, dear audience, thanks for your time!