“Don’t be a meme, but a movement”

Scott Hanselman wrote blog post earlier this year titled “Your Blog is The Engine of Community”, in which he encourages us to blog more, and tweet less.

I hear you Scott.

Social Media is junk food, and my brain is overweight! I used to have a healthy technical blog and really enjoyed contributing to the community through writing. That was over 21 mos ago. Since then I have become a complacent retweeter (with occasional joke). Looking around at some of my favorite blogs, I can see many of you have fallen into the same trap (you know who you are).

Hey we all need a break, and that’s cool, but it’s time to start blogging again. Now don’t’ run out and write one of those “My blog has been really quiet lately so this is the first post in an amazing series I am going to do” posts, because we all know how that one turns out. Instead, I just make an honest effort by writing one post, and have a good time doing it.

Scott shares some good pointers-

“Blog your opinions. Blog your cool project, or your latest useful function or library. Don’t blog if it feels like work. Blog and get excited when someone comments. Often the comments are more fun and more useful than the post itself. Be passionate, but not rude. Point out failings, but suggest solutions. Organize. Invent.“

I have also started a personal blog over at jarodferguson.com where I am sharing my not-so-technical stuff. I have been meaning to do this for years. You know what? So far I really like it! It feels great because its MY content, MY brand. Twitter, Facebook, Path, Pinterest etc etc can take a back seat. Sure I will still enjoy them, but going forward I plan on doing a lot less ‘managing’ content across my networks. Blog first, social media site of the day second (besides Posterous makes it pretty easy to publish to all these other sites).

So how about you? Why not brush off that keyboard and share with us? You never know who might really enjoy your thoughts.