A fellow blogger and SQL guy, Jason Strate (@stratesql) started a meme on Social Networking as a result of a Social Networking session we participated in at SQL Saturday #99 in Minnesota. (http://www.jasonstrate.com/2011/12/the-meme15-on-social-networking/)
The questions for this month are:
1. Why did you start blogging?
2. Why do you currently blog?
Let the reflection begin
Why Did I Start?
I have “started” blogging at least three times that I can remember. In each case, I had great aspirations about passing along cool stuff I had learned. Interestingly, it was neither easy nor “fun” for me to blog. Each of those times I failed because I could not find enough unique topics to write about. After all, who would want to read a blog about something someone else had written?
So, I gave it another try. With guidance from the likes of Jason Strate (@stratesql) and Dan English (@denglishbi), I realized that a blog was a way to communicate what I had learned and what was exciting to me. I fired up my old blog and have been blogging on what interested me and in particular when I had to work to resolve an issue. Now, I was really a “blogger” and it was cool.
Why Do I Continue?
I still work hard to get blogs written. I am much more comfortable presenting on a topic as opposed to writing blogs. However, I have discovered that some of the stuff I write actually interests other people.
I write more now to get out information on topics that I enjoy and to discuss problems I have had to solve. I do wish I had more time to blog, but I will blog when I can. It is more fun than it used to be for me and I will keep on blogging.
What’s up with the name?
What is behind DataOnWheels? Well, on of the attempts I started was while I was working at Xata (www.xata.com) which is a transportation management company. I really enjoyed working there and the data work was really cool. I thought DataOnWheels was unique and represented my interest in both data and transportation. Well, I have since returned to Magenic (www.magenic.com) where I still work with data, but not so much with transportation. However, a brand is a brand. I like the uniqueness of the name and I guess I could change my tag to “Have data, will travel” or maybe not. I just like the name.
In conclusion, if you are interested in blogging yourself I encourage you to give it a try. There are a couple of free blogging sites out there like WordPress which I use and Google’s Blogspot which my daughter has used. My final advice is you should write when you want to and don’t feel bad when you have to wait a while. Do it for yourself first, who knows who will find you when they need that info.
Data on Wheels - Kristyna Ferris & Steve Hughes 