“First have something to say”. That’s my cardinal rule of blogging, which is what makes this 30 posts in 30 days challenge…well… a challenge. It’s similar to the Twitter365 Challenge, where sometimes I ended up with the oddest photos just to take a photo of something…
265/365 How to eat a Choco-bat
I’ve had less to say over the last six months with a change of jobs and completing my studies, and this blog has reflected that.
A couple of days ago, Sue wondered about blogging about professional issues and the effect on one’s career – the effect of having too much to say and it being taken the wrong way. She kicked off from a couple of posts from the insightful, wise and direct Dorothea Salo who has been concerned about her blog damaging her career as she moves to new responsibilities. Con and bookgrrrl put a different slant on the topic, looking at one’s own perception of having something to say – what made one “worthy” to have a voice in the professional area (conclusion – sensibly- there is not qualifying criteria, just do it).
Kate’s response has been closest to where I am. She has no problem with blogging about professional issues. That’s why she created her blog. She blurs her personal and professional anyhow, but wonders whether she could now start putting more of the personal into her blogging.
I’m wondering the same. I have another 22 posts to go in the 30 posts in 30 days challenge. After a week of trying to do “think posts” I’m going to change my goalposts and aim for a week of getting more personal. I’m not going to avoid the professional, but will maybe push it over to librariesinteract.info .
Now, I was going to talk about my motivation for blogging and how I have so far blended/separated my personal/professional…except I have written a post’s worth already and after reading Michael Agger’s post about How We Read Online, I daren’t .
(Except to say that I find it really confronting to think about blogging personally. I think I have built up my readership around the professional topics and “voice” of the blog – and mixing it up might disappoint my readers who come here for library thoughts, not to find out about me.
Maybe it’s a bit like a restaurant though – mix it up every couple of years or go out of business ( although here I sit in Gino’s coffee shop in Freo that has been the same for 25 years or so…)
So – to keep it useful to my readers, what do you want to know? What would you like to hear about? What have I been omitting in the blog-me that you would like to know about? What’s something you’d like me to talk about? )
Post 9 of the 30 posts in 30 days challenge.
Of course I’d love to hear your libraries related stories, or your cat, or that water-wise garden, maybe your new library too!!
hmmm. Chickens. Yes. I would like to hear about your chickens.
You can turn personal issues into professional ones – eg where your personal values guide the choices you make in your professional life.
I’d love to hear about how you stay energised, motivated, committed to the projects you say yes to. (You always strike me as one of the most positive and “can do” people I have ever met! 🙂 )
Also love to hear about how you learn. How you choose what to learn. How you practise what you learn.
Is this all too meta?
Katherine
I am just starting to get nto blogging, which actually is a result of listening to you talk at a symposium in Darwin and I also read Sue Waters blog, which I also find inspiring.
My question is also what to blog about. I have so many interests and am still a student of information technology. I am a busy single mum who works part-tuime, blending my IT with my mundane administration duties (my real job). I teach dance in my own business and I love to design using photoshop and illustrator and my dream is to become a web designer. My most recent interests are photography and a renewed interest in reading (non-fiction), you know that general knowledge stuff.
So I recently decided to catagorise my life in the hope of actually trying to achieve something substanial, huh! Anyway I have started a blog that relects these catagores of my life. It is called “8Categories…personal development whilst balancing life” (not yet published, bit of a chicken). Thought I might just start collecting tid bits and see where this leads me.
Thanks for your posts, I love reading them. How you learn and what you chose to learn, is certainly of interest to me as well.
Thanks
Kylie Cole
Anyway
I’d like to read about:
– book reviews (YA fiction! fiction! non fiction!)
– recipes (I still make your choc-milk fruit cake)
– favourite places (local/not)
– favourite spaces
– new apps to check out (keep ’em coming!)
– the perks of working in a public library and the perks of working in an academic library (I was going to say “vs” but it’s not a competition!)
– an update on SecondLife for/with/of libraries
– what your thesis was secretly about
btw, I often think of your blog as “librarian smatter”. So a “smattering” of topics is the way to go 😉 Dabble here, dabble there!
Kathryn,
I enjoy everything you write. Just keep writing.
This resonates with my thoughts about my blog [which is only 9 days old]. Personal stuff is confronting to put up there, but conversely gives me a really positive feeling after publishing. Even mindless personal stuff which I started with.
I’m using categories to deal with my thoughts about whether others are interested – so you can choose library stuff and filter out the personal thoughts.
Getting heaps more comments on my thoughts posts though!
I think the only problem you can run into though with going from a very active blog to a somewhat inactive blog is that your loyal readers get used to when you update. So if you update once a week, I think consistency is important. If you update every day, your readers will get used to that and wonder what is going on if you slack off even once every few days. 🙂
I totally understand the fear of blogging personally! I did it for the first time last week and the 30 posts in 30 days challenge means I’ll have to delve into personal blogging again. I also feel I’ve developed a ‘voice’ and even in personal blogs I think I want to continue with that. We’ll see how it goes. I think a mix is good. As a reader I like feeling like I ‘know’ the blogger via personal posts and ‘respect’ them via professional posts.
I second Michelle’s sentiments. Just keep writing. I love reading your writing. You set a benchmark for professional blogging Kathryn.