Blogging for the Right Reasons
Published on 9 Jun 2010 · Filed in Rant · 387 words (estimated 2 minutes to read)This will be a very quick blog post just to address a growing trend I’ve noticed. It started with the wave of prominent bloggers getting hired by EMC for the vSpecialist team. With the recent VMware vExpert 2010 awards, this trend has gotten even bigger. What is the trend? The trend I’m seeing is people starting blogs just to get attention in the industry.
Of course everyone wants to be noticed in their industry. I understand that. I respect that. I want to be noticed in my industry, too—there’s nothing wrong with that. But I cannot stress strongly enough that if you are starting a blog simply to make some noise in the industry, maybe win an award, or get hired by <Insert Company Name Here>, you are blogging for all the wrong reasons.
If you’re going to blog (or tweet), do it for the right reasons. I mentioned this in my recent chinwag with Mike Laverick. The successful bloggers are the bloggers who blog because of their passion for the topic(s) about which they are blogging. Consider some of the well-known and well-respected VMware-related bloggers out there:
Why do these guys blog and/or tweet? Well, I’m not privy to their thoughts, but what I get out of their writing is that they are passionate about their topics. That passion comes through in their writing, it infects the readers, and their popularity grows. But I don’t think they started out with the intent of becoming popular or well-known. They started out because there was a topic that they were interested in or knowledgeable about and for which they had a passion.
So if you’re going to start a blog, fine. Do it. It’s fun (hard work, but fun). But be sure to do it for the right reasons.
UPDATE: If, for whatever reason, I didn’t list your name above, it doesn’t mean anything! Those names just jumped out of my head as some of the many virtualization-focused blogs that I follow. In addition, I know the writers of these sites on a more personal basis than the writers of most other sites. There are so many other excellent virtualization sites that I would be remiss to try to list them all. I’ll leave that to Eric Siebert!