Should I Start a Blog?
If you are also asking yourself the question, "Should I start a blog?", the answer, as I've come to think about it, depends on two additional questions.
I used to blog when I was about 19. I had written a bunch of C programs; I had built an ASP.Net application in C# that transliterated Bengali to English; I was tinkering with Linux to set up a PS3 Cluster.
This was 2008, HTML5 was just being standardized and jQuery was all the rage. I used to write about the (slim) findings from my tinkering.
I decided to stop blogging when I felt I should be focusing on building my experiences outside of the Internet. I realized my programs were not being of real use to anyone, and neither were my blog posts.
During this hiatus from blogging, I've hardly been away from the Internet. I was building Internet companies with different degrees of success. More than ten years on, with inspiration from Jeff Atwood and Ben Nadel, I've decided to take up the pen again.
Over the past ten years, I learnt how to (and how not to) build teams. I can now share my experiences of working with different people, putting them together in teams, creating a culture, facing and resolving conflict. I can now share how I discovered, implemented and improved processes. Also, I can now share my knowledge on how I built, with my teams, many different products using a variety of technologies.
I recall that my blog had forced me to organize my thoughts in a presentable manner which isn't the case on my note-taking applications. The exercise in writing a decade ago helped me differentiate myself and progress early in my career. I feel returning to this exercise will benefit me once again, it remains to be seen how.
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” - Steve Jobs
If you are also asking yourself the question, "Should I start a blog?", the answer, as I've come to think about it, depends on two additional questions.
- Do I have some specific knowledge or experience that my readers will engage, benefit or draw value from?
- Is there any value I will gain from sharing my experiences and engaging with my readers?
My answer to these two questions are yes and I've started my blog as of this post. If the answer to these questions is yes for you too, I encourage you to do the same.
[Edited by Noor Awan.]
