Blogging Down Barriers

I’m a big fan of blogging. I’ve been doing it since people still knew the word was an amalgam of “web log”. Blogger.com launched in 1999 and I think I used that as my own launching point for blogging (up until then I was posting static articles on websites and sharing ideas in online groups and bulletin boards.)

My own article archive on this site goes back to 2002. I did my best to import all my Blogger posts, but early on I had changed names or abandoned a blog to start over and those are lost to time (I was just starting to write and they probably sucked anyway.)

But what didn’t suck — and hasn’t since the time I began sharing my ideas in public forums like my blog — is the ability of a blog to break down barriers.

I am a big fan of Hugh MacLeod and his blog GapingVoid.com.  His books Ignore Everybody and Evil Plans are at the top of my recommended must-read list.  The most recent book he authored was on the topic of blogging — Freedom is Blogging In Your Underwear — and the promotional video he created best illustrates how blogging can help you completely bypass gatekeepers and breakdown barriers.

You see?
Valuable ideas can’t be kept at bay behind closed doors.  If you have an idea that you feel is valuable to a person or an industry, write about it. Share your insights. Think out loud. In public.  Blogging allows you to do all of these things in an ideal format for being shared through links, social media, or the power of being found in Google.

Lightbulb Moment

• Just do it
  You don’t need anyone’s permission to start a personal blog.
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• The right tools for the job
  There are free and almost free blogging tools galore. Blogger kind of jumped the hark for me a decade ago, but it’s still up, active, and has lots of users. WordPress.org is pretty much the default standard for personally hosted and customizable blogs, but if you want the benefit of using WordPress without having to host it yourself visit WordPress.com.  Tumblr is a close second to WordPress is the number of available design templates, it’s actually quite FUN to use!  It is hands-down the easiest way to give blogging a try. If you don’t mind paying a monthly fee for a service, SquareSpace is really nice and user-friendly (but it will cost you  minimum of $8 month.)
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• Start writing!
  Writer’s block is a Myth. Cant think of anything to write? My friend Jeffrey Gitomer asks — you don’t get “Talker’s Block” do you?  Is there someone of influence that you’ve been trying to reach or always wanted to have lunch with? Think about what you would say to them if they were right in front of you and type it out.  Use a tool like Dragon Dictation if need to, it will turn your spoken words into text.

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