Why Do I Blog?

A customer architect asked me why do I blog?

I was a little caught by surprise, but a few things came to mind:

1. connection with the people I interact with, whether it's work collagues, customers, past colleagues, friends, and acquaintances that I meet at events

2. meet new people online that have similar interests as myself (probably software architects!)

3. a medium for expression and reflection, take stock of the day, document various little interesting experiences that I have

Interestingly enough, I blurted out the first bullet point as my answer on the spot, but after pondering about it tonight, I think I largely blog for point 3, and I now truly treasure the blog post collection that I have, just like most people treasure the personal diaries they keep over the years.

He also then expressed that in his situation - being a very senior person at a very publically visible and high profile organisation, he would be highly concerned about blogging himself, and being misquoted, and how the PR and media/interview process for his organisation is very strict, and how he would simply not be able to get his blog posts ok'ed by the PR people at his organisation.

I'm not sure if I have clever answers to these concerns, I'm sure this is a topic that other worldwide famous bloggers have already pondered and blogged about, but one thing I feel confident about is that with blogging, we are in control of the selection of words, and I personally find I can express myself in exactly the way I want the message to go out, as opposed to interviews, where the article can often (and have often in the past) misquoted me. It'd be interesting to see in the near future if the digital divide will come between not the rich and the poor, but more the digital natives and the digital immigrants.