James Dellow of Chieftech has asked me (and some others) How do I decide what to blog about?
It seems pretty obvious to me: I blog about the stuff that interests me.
But this isn't the whole story. I clearly go through periods where I blog more or less, depending on a wide variety of factors. And I don't think there is a serious change to the amount of "things that interest me" over time, though which things catch my attention certainly do shift. So what else affects this decision?
I base some of the decision on what I think my audience might want to read. The stuff that brings me a lot of feedback definitely influences my future blogging decisions. I also pay attention to what my readers and the wider circle of my friends and colleagues read. And I do that by reading many other blogs, twitter feeds, books, periodicals, etc. I do ego searches and explore what other people are saying about what I've written to see if that inspires still more writing.
And there is the time and propriety issue. I find myself being consumed with family and work, and have less time to devote to longer posts. And some things about work, and in the past my clients, don't belong in this blog.
So, to sum up: I blog about the things that interest me that I think will interest my audience, when I have the time.
And I noticed that Dennis Kennedy has posted on a similar topic (with brevity) and linked to Andrew Sullivan's article from The Atlantic on Why I Blog. Two slightly different topics, but both interesting. Rather than claiming that the blog is dead, this path on the discussion is much more fruitful.
If you think this is an interesting meme, feel free to pick it up and run with it on your own blog. I'm not going to tag anyone explicitly.