Blogging away

I can't actually remember when I did my first blog - it was definitely some years ago. But, I never really could be bothered to keep up with it, as I tended to think "who is going to read this?".

Back at the end of the 19th Century, many famous diarist / writers etc. use to write to one another, sometimes 4 - 6 times a day. Of course in those days, the post used to collect and deliver many times a day - in London, especially around the West End or City areas, they would have 8 collections / deliveries per day. How times change! I actually can just remember the last time that I got a personal hand written letter - just before Christmas 2 years ago from a friend I haven't seen in about 5 years.

Electronic mail (including IM, and texts) has taken over from writing letters and I know that many people do keep in touch that way. We don't allow IM at work (as it could encourage people to spend time away from their job) and I note that there are a number of people that send "text emails" - they use their email to send the short one line abbreviated messages that would normally go via the mobile.

The blog of course is more like a personal newspaper comment section - you make your feelings known and post for all the world to see (or more likely not). Although there are some bloggers that do attract larger audiences, it's more likely that they are espousing extreme views or have attarcted notoriety for some other reason than the quality of their writing. Of course that is not what this one is for - it's more about sharing information, particularly of the sort that might be of value to other people in a similar line of work.

Some years ago, I was told by a senior manager that too often, people were working so hard that they forgot to stick their heads up and take a look around them to see the bigger picture. I can agree with this; particularly in IT, there is so much going on all the time, that it easy to forget that the work we do is a means to an end, not just work for its own sake.

The blog partly allows us to do just that - stick our heads up to see what else is going on. And hopefully, my comments and thoughts will be of value to other people rather just an ego trip for myself.