20 years ago, I heard about a thing called blogging. I was a technology director/consultant like a kid in a candy shop trying every new tool out there. For those of you of a certain age, you’ll recall the mid-2000’s was a burgeoning time in edtech. Laptops were replacing desktops, web 2.0 had emerged and multimedia was coming on strong with digital cameras and video.
Here’s my very first blog post:
Brilliant, I know. Interestingly this post garnered 6 responses which speaks to how things used to be. This was pre-social media as we know it today but it was part of Web 2.0 which was the new ease and opportunity to create as well as consume content.
I’ve always been an early adopter. I joined Youtube in 2006 and Twitter in 2007. I’ve never referred to myself as a content creator but the numbers don’t lie:
Blogging has remained my most important platform. From the beginning, I was excited to be able to share without restriction or gatekeeping. I would post about anything I wanted. The value was partly to document my thinking, bookmarking new tools, sharing something useful for others and occasionally engaging in interesting conversations. What I never did then and not since was strategically use these platforms to grow and build my brand. That word itself has been explored a lot in this space. I didn’t learn about SEO or explore the myriad of tools designed to make the most of digital marketing. I know that cost me $$ and opportunities. But I’m naturally lazy and wasn’t interested in making a business out of it. That is no criticism to those who have. They’re smarter and more motivated than I am.
I have no real idea how many people read this blog. It’s been years since I looked at the stats. I know somewhere I have an email subscriber list. I did look at that about 5 years ago and saw I had about 500 subscribers. My guess is most of them have this go straight to trash. At one point I had 40,000 Twitter followers which always blew my daughters away and to this day can’t figure out how that happened. Neither can I.
I’ve been posting content for 20 years and I still enjoy it. I have no idea if others find value, although I do know my recent podcast seems to be well-received by many. I have no plans to do anything new or different. I’ve recently watched a colleague Tim Childers grow a pretty nice YouTube following which seems to be a nice part-time retirement gig. This stuff still fascinates me and it’s nice to see people find ways to connect and provide real value to others. I hope I can continue that. Happy anniversary to me.