Quiet

I wrote this back in November. It's a blast from the past, yo.

I've spent the last few months redesigning web pages. Ordinarily I update pages; I work within an existing framework. Now a group of us (all women, interestingly) have been charged with examining the framework.

It's fun and interesting and difficult and I love it.

Throughout this project we've talked a lot about purpose – the purpose of the project, of course, but also the purpose of the site as a whole and of each sub-section. We start with that objective, and then we investigate whether we're succeeding or failing at the objective, why, and how design changes might fix it.

These discussions at work got me wondering about the purpose of a personal blog. Musing. What is the purpose of a personal blog? What are we doing and why?

Here's my theory.

Now, I do think some personal bloggers primarily aim to make money; but let's set them aside. The bloggers I read – the bloggers in my community – aim for personal fulfillment or satisfaction by way of

• explaining/exploring their viewpoint and
• communicating with other bloggers who explore similar issues or ideas

Yes? No?

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I always say I blog for writing practice but really, it's a poor way to practice. It's like composing emails & calling that writing practice. I'd be better off joining a writing group.

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Bon has been writing about bloggers' brands. Her initial posts upset some of her readers, who were all I'm not a corporation and Who are you to define me and I'm bigger than a box! But branding as she meant it really just defines the viewpoint a blogger explains or explores – purpose #1 up there.

In her last post she asked her readers to state in one word "what we're doing out here" – out here on the internet, in blogland and on twitter. My word, I said, is Quiet.

Ha!

I think that's funny. True, but funny. What kind of blogger is quiet?