Om Malik's Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Blogging

I did a post here last week on the Why of and How of my blogging.  The thrust of it was that with every passing day of consuming and passing on news and research, I am becoming smarter and more immersed in the stuff I need to know for my career. My blog turned three years old the other day and it feels like forever.

Om Malik of GigaOM is now passing his tenth year as a blogger.  Om is one of the premier technology bloggers on the web and like most of the pioneers, he began blogging before there even was a such thing as blogging.  Here are ten lessons he’s learned in the last decade…

1. Blogging is communal: In 2008, I wrote that “blogging is not just an act of publishing but also a communal activity. It is more than leaving comments; it is about creating connections.” That is the single biggest lesson learned of these past 10 years. Every connection has led to a new idea, new thought and a new opportunity.
2. Being authentic in your thoughts and voice is the only way to survive the test of time.
3. Being wrong is as important as being right. What’s more important — when wrong, admit that you are wrong and listen to those who are/were right.
4. Be regular. And show up to blog every day. After all you are as fresh as your last blog post.
5. Treat others as you expect yourself to be treated.
6. (In 2006 I wrote this and it is worth repeating) Doc Searls once told me, and it has been one of the guiding principles for me: blog if you have something to say and respect your reader’s time. If you respect their time, they are going to give you some time of their day.
7.  A long time ago, Slate’s Farhaad Manjoo asked me for some tips on blogging and here is what I told him – Wait at least 15 minutes before publishing something you’ve written—this will give you enough distance to edit yourself dispassionately.
8. Write everything as if your mom is reading your work, a good way to maintain civility and keep your work comprehensible.
9. Blogging is not about opinion but it is about viewing the world in a certain way and sharing it with others how you look at things.

              The tenth lesson comes from Kevin Kelleher when he was writing for us back in 2010. In his post, How the Internet changed writing he noted:

Many bloggers tailor headlines and posts so that they’ll surface at the top of search results, making them at once easier to find and less enjoyable to read. And this decade, a lot of other bloggers mistook a strong writing voice for caustic irreverence. But most eventually learned that writing with snark is like cooking with salt — a little goes a long way.

               If anything, avoiding that trap Kevin mentioned is the biggest lesson of them all.

Om’s whole ten-year blogiversary post is worth reading when you have some time, head over below…

Source:

My 10 years of blogging: Reflections, Lessons & Some Stats Too (GigaOM)