OMG.
I’ve been hankering to write here for the last few months, and finally, in the lull between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I’ve run off to one of my usual outposts to take time to write something. Then I noticed that in 2017 I only made 13 posts, and in 2018, 2.
Long history (with gaps)
My writing here goes back to January 2004: a photo of my laptop screen, using my phone and posting over the web to the blog. I remember feeling late to the game. I was introduced to blogs (as they were in 2003-2005) the year before by some wonderful smarties at Nokia, knew a few ardent bloggers, and then joined a team where blogging was part of the product. Back then, I had been writing online for a few years, starting with a proto-blog, so it was natural for me to blog. Indeed, by 2008, I got so deep I was leading the Nokia corporate blog and beyond.
While 2017 and 2018 have been quiet here, I’ve been writing for others – corporate writing, alas, offline and on (latest) – but still in my own style, fortunately. But, online, for myself, I’ve been quite quiet.
And in fine company
There are a few people, who will remain nameless for now, who were smarter and more productive with their writing back in the day (2003-2013). Some of them were the ones inventing the future, and I count myself very fortunate to have interacted with and learned from them. All of us were on the cutting edge of mobile, design, digital interactive, the web. Many things we talked about back then are only now becoming main stream.
We lost touch long ago, and we’ve all moved on to other things. But one thing I noticed we all have in common is that, at some level, we’ve all stopped posting to our blogs, social media streams, and many other public channels (I checked recently, actually).
Unsaid reasons
I’m not going to go into the various possible reasons, but I do think part of it is the noise,* the changes from personal to impersonal, and the general changes in the je ne sais quoi of the digital world and everything connected to it (non, je pense que je sais quoi).
I know that my withdrawal here is reflected in the other digital places I’ve withdrawn from. Though this really doesn’t reflect any reduction in what’s happening between my two ears.
Don’t mind if I do
That said, I’m no longer writing for you and others (you’ll never find this without me explicitly sending you the link), but for me (at some level, all my writing has been for me, but back in the day, you were on my mind, and you were able to find me amongst the much more reduced noise*). Despite all the amazing things blogs have provided for me and others for the last decade and a half, I’ve reduced my blog to a repository for notes I might want to share with others at some point.
So, while I have no expectation that anyone will read anything on this blog unless I point it out, I’ve a backlog of some things I want to write. And if you do find this, thank you, and enjoy. If not, then I do hope we have a great conversation and I get to send you some links from here to expand your mind.
Cheers.
*The noise, as in, finding a signal in everything that overwhelms us from the digiverse. I see this affecting so much of what I’m trying to do, forcing me to find alternate ways to engage with others (albeit, more physical, face to face, so not all bad, for the most part).
Image from pixabay
