A quick – I never do quick not even in my comments – ranting blog.
Categories?
What category does your blog belong in? It’s technical SDN. It has something to do with ABAP – ABAP. It has a BPX slant – BPX.
OK – cut and dry right?
For bloggers, it may not. I try to keep my blogs light. My blogs tend to be happy on the cheerful side of things. Sometimes they are even over the top. I have an old one about the Kingdome / king and my new one is about wizards, ogres, and things that reminded me of the piranha pool work can be. Does that mean the blog doesn’t have a point? Nope – it sure doesn’t. When I write something – even this ranting blog – I have a point. I may not express it well. At times I probably don’t. But I have a point.
Today’s blog – my side of categories and which ones to use – it’s your blog. You decide where it fits. If you are wrong – so what?
Does it clutter up the queue for those following a certain topic?
That’s the flip side you know. That’s the argument I’ve heard from more than one person. I guess my response is read the title! Read the short description prior to reading a blog. Have one person that you hate the way they write blogs? Then skip their blog – don’t read it. It takes maybe a minute to read the short description. Most will give out information on the blog, and will set the tone, or way the writer writes.
Sometimes I am serious! Now you know my hot spots. I don’t like those comments asking me to move my blog because it doesn’t fit in this category. I don’t mind it when someone doesn’t like my blog. You can’t make EVERYONE happy. I LOVE it when they debate a point in the blog. If it makes someone smile, that’s good too. If the point is lost in the blog itself – that wasn’t intentional. I have a strange writing style. Sometimes the meaning gets lost just because of the way that I write.
Ahhhhh! Maybe I should summarize at the end with just what I was hoping to convey.
So you, the would be bloggers – and you current bloggers
Do you know exactly what category to put your blogs in? Are you sure no one would disagree. How-to manuals with a story attached are easier. They fall into a certain category. But what about all those other blogs?
Now you know me – or maybe not. That means I had to start looking back at blogs that I read to see the categories.
I didn’t even get through scrolling the first page. Does that mean that I pointed out some of these blogs, and by golly they need to change their category? No not at all. Why am I only picking on a few people? Really Michelle, that’s not very nice. These were the blogs I could find quickly on the first page by reading the description.
Light, fluffy, nice, funny
So is it because my blogs are light reading that they do not belong in a technical category? Perhaps. I’ll think about it some more. Today isn’t the first day I was asked – why ABAP? I’m sure it won’t be the last time I’m asked why a certain category.
New SCN Platform changes
Maybe the new effort to upgrade SCN will help us poor bloggers determine a category. But I doubt it. A category is not something that is easy to decide. We cannot develop a program to automatically categorize the blogs. I don’t know - maybe there could be some questions that you answer and it auto-magically determines the categories. Maybe that would work.
Still I bet my answers would fall into a technical area. As I was trying to highlight the technical gamification on an Innojam project.
And finally – The purpose!
I did say I would summarize the purpose at the end.
What category should you post in? I think you should decide. If it clutters up someone’s feeds, it only takes a few seconds to read the description.
Also keep track of the bloggers whose writing style you don’t like. I have a couple. It doesn’t mean that someone else won’t like it. And I still read them, because I can get to the underlying purpose. But you may decide that they don’t post things you want to hear about. Then by all means – skip them!
We – and I speak for all bloggers here – want you to get something from our blogs. If you aren’t, then it is a waste of our time to create the blog.
My “motto” – If I can reach just one person my blog, presentation, or article in MQ is worth the effort. So hopefully this rant helps that one person. Or makes them think, debate, or smile.
