Tuesday, January 6, 2009

One year of blogging: A reflection

Thanks to reminders from two of my friends RamPrasad Moudgalya and Ravi Aranke I started blogging in December 2007. Posted 9 blogs under Becoming a successful technical leader, 49 blogs under Insights of a catalyst in alignment and innovation (current blog) and 7 blogs under Becoming to being, making a total of 65 blogs during the year. That makes it a little over a 1 blog per week. I thought I will look back and see what I feel about this journey.

I had following reservations when I started blogging:

1. Me-too syndrome: Why add more noise to already existing one? There is so much being written by so many people. Who has time to read one more blog?

2. Sustainability: Is it something I can sustain for a while, say for a few years? It is my nature to commit to a few things that I enjoy and sustain them over a long time. For example, I have been jogging twice a week for 20 years, cycling regularly for 25 years, practicing music for the past 4 years etc. On the flip side, it has been almost a decade since I stopped watching TV as I felt that I don’t have the DNA to enjoy TV. And there is this third category of things like “learning to speak kannada” where I started serious attempts to learn at least 3 times and did not sustain it long enough to make satisfactory progress. Which category will blogging belong to?

What do I think of it after a year?

1. A matter of joy: It has been immense joy to write 300 to 500 words on topics close to heart. It also has a cleansing effect. When I try to structure my thought and write a blog, it clears clutter in my mind. Sometimes it identifies clear gaps in the understanding. Either way it helps me sleep well at night.

2. Importance of communication: Writing a blog is one thing and writing it such that it is sticky is another. Thanks to Made to stick, I realized the importance of various attributes like concreteness, simplicity, story in a communication. Blogging gives me a tool to experiment with various mechanisms to make a communication sticky.

3. Weaving your thoughts: In the last few months, I came to see my blogging as an activity similar to weaving. I seem to be discovering threads in organization innovation and alignment and one by one weaving them to create something more meaningful and useful. For example, one such thread which I discovered during the course of weaving is “Role of insights in innovation”. Another one is “Prototyping”.


4. Marketing tool: These days when I go for meetings with clients or prospective clients, I usually send them links to my blogs on related topics beforehand. 2 out of 5 attendees end up reading some of these. That makes the discussion more meaningful. I have been advocating personal branding through my technical leadership trainings. It feels good to walk the talk.


To summarize, I seem to have stumbled upon a new source of joy which is quite unaffected by market swings, global warming etc. Perhaps you might want to give it a shot too.

9 comments:

  1. Congratulations Vinay for completing one year of blogging. Your blogs are both informative and thought provoking. Wishing you another great year in blogging and in everything else.

    RamP!

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  2. Hi Vinay,

    It's a remarkable achievement. Your posts are thought provoking, just nice bite-sized and most importantly, you have stuck with it.

    Now it is my turn to take my own medicine and restart regular blogging.

    Regards,
    Ravi

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  3. Hi Vinay,

    Very well. Please keep blogging. I have been following your blogs, and found them useful.

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  4. Certainly a matter of pride for you and a joy for us.. Wish you all the best. Keep writing!

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  5. Great Going! Picking a focus and sticking with it the key to success... Best for 2009!

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  6. Heard about your blog from RamP. Congratulations on on completing one year of successful blogging!

    All the best

    KrishnaK

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  7. Vinay

    There is a Cartesian world view many of us seem to accept … This was summed up by Rene Descartes “Cogito Ergo Sum” … several millennia later an IT company derived its name from this! … So do bloggers … IBTIAM … Consider flipping this … IBTYA or I Blog Therefore You Are … closer home …

    Happy blogging and thanks for being a wonderful friend …

    Prof. Swami Krishnan

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  8. Congrats Vinay on completing one successful year of blogging and I am sure you are going to sustain it.

    Writing is a insightful activity. Though you start with the need to communicate with the outside world, but you do end up knowing a lot about yourself too.

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  9. Thank you all for the encouragement.

    Vinay

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