Stepping Higher - Reflections on the Knowledge Age

After about 6 months of blogging, it's time to look back and reflect on the outcome of my blogging activities. And I hate to name it, but the first outcome that comes to mind is stress. First it was the stress of finding the right topic. Do I have anything to talk about which would be interesting enough to others? Then it was the stress of being seen. Suddenly friends were mentioning that they have read my blog lately and were commenting on it. Each time then I rushed back to my site to verify that what I had written was really something I could still confirm, desperately hoping that I make somehow sense with what I write. Then it was the stressful urge to get more users. Of course I want to be seen and I want have more readers, so I started to link to other blogs and make comments there, at the same time inviting others to comment on mine. Which of course requires further investment in research and quality check. And increased quality indeed takes time and effort, which in return ...

The biggest question for me as a blogger newbie is, what should I actually talk about? Do I have something to tell which is of any importance to the outside world? Do I know things that others don't know? Things of actual value to others? Realizing that many of the blogs out there elaborate on private life details of an intimacy level with which I either feel not comfortable with or I am just not interested in, I decided to abstain from publishing personal diary stories. On the other hand, a significant amount of bloggers use their blog strategically to position themself in their professional environment or a thematic community they feel part of. This however requires of course a certain confidence in your own knowledge and (where this knowledge is still very much in the process of evolving) significant investment into research. And of course this strategy will not work, if positioning yourself is your only inscentive to start a blog. In order to have something to tell about which ...