Tagged: 5 Reasons I Blog

I got tagged by Get A New Browser. So now I elaborate on 5 reasons why I blog.

A little about me to start with, because all five reasons will relate to this little bit of information. I am a hungry person. I’m all about getting and making the most of: knowledge, experience, emotions, friends… and in the case of my former life, narcotics. I was previously a bass player for a relatively successful punk rock band, until I pretty much lost everything to my addictive personality. That’s how I ended up in a small town starting my life over. I credit myself for having ambition and determination, but am humble enough to know that without the support of my friends, my parents and my wife, Circle Six Design, The Urbane Animal, and my current life in general would all be languishing with me in a gutter.

That being said, I didn’t start blogging because of any of that. I started blogging because it seemed like a fun way to use my web hosting setup. I put the name of my business on my blog and therefore did not blog about my bad days or how cute my cat was (at least not regularly), but stuck to my interests and personal knowledge and how they could help others. Eventually, the following reasons for blogging became clear to me. I’m still hungry, as my reasons will show:

Getting Out of Town

After years of wandering major metropoli, coming back to Winona was a hard knock for me. At first, blogging didn’t do much about that. But as comments and emails started coming in from, literally, around the world, I began to feel connected once again. The other half of writing a blog is reading other’s blogs, and the combination of the two have greatly increased my feeling of being part of a larger picture.

Getting Out the Geek

I don’t have any close geek friends. I can bore my wife for a little while with tales of the latest advances in technology, but her eyes quickly glaze over and I realize I can say anything I want to… she stopped listening after “and the robot is actually controlled by signals from the brain…”. This blog gives me an outlet to rant and rave for pages about the geekiest stuff in the world (I’m allowed to have a whole category called “Geekery”, and actually use it). And the beauty is, only people who care have to listen. I get to be myself, my geeky self, and anybody who doesn’t like it can click away without hurting my feelings.

Getting Out the Rock Star

My numbers are miniscule compared to the average A-lister, but with an average readership of 400+ subscribers and around 900-2500 hits, depending on the day, I often feel like I used to at gigs. Back then, a crowd of 200 was a great night. This blog gives me a chance to talk to a crowd of like-minded people larger than the entire geek/designer population of my area of Minnesota. There are mosh pits, people ganging up around the mic for a chorus, and occasionally I even get spit on. It’s just like punk rock, in a not at all sort of way.

Getting it Back

I write for the express purpose of helping people out. Whether I’m sharing a tip, a story or a personal experience, about 50% of the time it results in a comment or an email that tips me off to something new. Even if it’s just a chance to make a new friend, across the country or across the globe, it’s a great feeling to know that I get something back. It keeps me blogging.

Getting Compensated

I’m not speaking of monetary compensation. I’m talking about spending a frustrating weekend trying to compile a Ruby library on OSX and finally figuring out that it could have been done in a couple of hours. If I was on my own, that would be a waste of time. But if I can write about it and help 10 other people save 10 hours each, I have, in the grand scheme of things, been compensated for my tribulations.

And now I’ll pass the mic…

• Ross at 3.7 Designs
• Marco at The Net is Dead
• Kristin at Kristin Pishdadi
• Ronalfy at Ronalfy.com
• Justine at Tasty Blog Snack