Online Guinea Pig
Hiya,
Learnt something yesterday – blogging makes me feel vulnerable. I am not used to communicating and not having a clue as to who I am communicating to – employees, peers, clients, competitors, ex-boyfriends… the list of possible audiences is endless. AND I don’t know anything about them – why they are reading this, what frame of mind they are in and most terrifyingly, what they think.
That was learning two – I care a lot more than I thought I did about what the response to this is going to be.
There are a few ways to respond to this feeling. The first would be to stop all together but this seems a bit defeatist so that, for now, is not an option. An alternative would be to try not offend anyone but the result would be a blog so bland, that by the end of July not even my mother will be reading it so that isn’t really an option either. Leaving me only one course of action – to be dead honest so that there is never any manipulation of content which will make is much easier to defend should I ever need to.
Which leads me to my next question – what exactly is honesty? I don’t mean this is a ‘what is the true nature of god?’ way, just in an ‘if online is forever then how long do my opinions need to last?’ way.
After some thought, I have chosen for honesty in blogging to mean being totally authentic about what I think or feel at any point while retaining the right to change my mind completely should any new information come to light. Pretty much in line with my offline life and its worked okay so far – lets see what it does online.
So, final result of ruminations is this – that to feel less vulnerable I am going to be more open. All sounding a little Zen really…
I have also decided to write this blog for just one particular audience to take the pressure off trying to keep all potential readers in my head.
And the winners are … South African business people who are looking to understand this blogging/ world but don’t have the time or the inclination to be the guinea pig.
So here I am guys – your own personal online guinea pig – ready to start the conversation.
