Why? #meme15

Jason Strate ( @stratesql | blog ) asked the following question in his #meme15 post  (a call for bloggers to write in the middle of the month) for December:

1. Why did you start blogging?
2. Why do you currently blog?

Then

I started blogging over on infoadvisors.com, my main website, in March 2006 in order to help data architects and other data professionals find information to make their days go smoother.  This was a natural outcome of the more than a decade long community management role I held on our discussion groups, since they were primarily about users of data management tools helping each other.  It was like building my first Lego set, something I did just this past year. Yes, my first one, ever.  Yes, that’s in the picture.  It was fun for me, but not so much for everyone else.  Just like when I first started blogging.

I think from our stats I did a fairly good job of sharing information about events, tools, techniques and maybe a few rants.  Just a few.  I didn’t like the platform I was using, Dot Net Nuke, so I started a WordPress-based blog (this one)  earlier in the year.  This allows me to blog more often.  I’m liking the new platform, but still trying to carve out enough time to get something of quality written.

I also blog at Dataversity.net.  That has provided me a slightly different audience, but still heavily data related.    There is an in-progress series about Normalization Myths and a few rants over there. Just a few.  You should go check them out.

Now

In thinking about Jason’s questions, I realized that I really blog in hopes of influencing people to think more about loving their data — ensuring that data has the best quality that we have time and resources to support.  I think that’s a good fit for my social media use, as well. There aren’t many people in the data architecture niche blogging – I know of only a handful and I have a blog post coming up soon that lists who I’ve found.  Compared to other topics, I think we data architects are going to find it tougher and tougher to influence the IT profession since for the most part we as a group avoid social media, blogs, and other newer forms of information sharing.   So while I’ll still blog because I like doing it, I want to start writing about more actionable topics – do this, then change that.  Make a difference.  Love your data. that sort of thing.

And I hope to that more often I’ll actually be able to influence people to make their data be better.

1 Comment

• The #Meme15 Round-Up | Strate SQL 22 December 2011 at 11:10 AM

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