Since attending the third session of the hashnode bootcamp and listening to Dr. Greiler, I have not really been at ease. First, I needed to be REALLY sure of why I wanted to blog (Was it because Chris Bongers said every developer should blog? Or was it something else?). Then came the task, writing about what successful blogging means to me. Ironical as it may seem, it is a question every blogger will eventually answer if they want to be successful.
EARLY BEGINNING
I have always been a lover of the arts and humanities, and I've loved reading since my childhood. Reading translated into writing, as a result of trying to imitate my favorite writers back then (J.P. Clark, Wole Soyinka, Bernard Shaw, Chinua Achebe, amongst others). Most of my stories and poems were actually about my life, sometimes mixed with fantasy and other times, they were a contraption from my vivid and wild imagination. I still have some copies of these write ups that I laugh over anytime I go through them.
My first experience with blogging was in early 2016 and now that I think about it, seems I only blogged for one day. I started blogging then as a result of peer pressure. I didn't have a topic or anything, I just jumped into blogging because a friend of mine had also started blogging. Blogging then was still quite lucrative, if you know your onions. What did we do then? We source for contents or anything that will drive traffic and copy it directly to our sites. By March, I had abandoned it because I couldn't keep up especially after I had gotten most of my social media accounts suspended for spamming.
WHY DO I BLOG
After attending the first session of the bootcamp with Chris Bongers, I saw the benefits of blogging for professionals and anyone else who fancies it. Benefits such as improving your reading and writing, helping you to stay on top of your game and helping you to learn in public. It also made me ask myself why I should blog and here is what I came about.
I am blogging for myself!
This may sound selfish, but it is the best way I can put if for now. Learning is a continuous process and blogging about my learning process will help me keep track of my progress and failures, as well as lessons learnt. Blogging about my learning process can draw reviews and suggestions from people which will aid me in learning new things as well and improve on things I have already learnt.
I am blogging for others!
The first task by Chris also gave me a fresh perspective on why I am blogging for others. The cycle of developers is a never ending one as new developers will continue to be churned out regularly. I have learned a lot of things thanks to people who have also blogged about their learning processes and new ways of doing things that they discovered. This has made my learning curve smoother because at least one person online must have encountered similar or the same challenge as you.
"There is a language for everyone", is something I have come to understand. People have different ways of explaining things which makes it understandable to different sets of people. I am blogging because I hope that someone one day will find my way of explaining concepts understandable and learn from my posts. I am hoping my posts will be useful to someone, somewhere, someday.
SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING
If you ask ten people what successful blogging means to them, be sure you are going to get ten different answers from them.
But to me, successful blogging means being able to achieve the goals I set out to achieve in the first place, the reasons why I started blogging in the first place.
This also involves:
- being comfortable in my learning space,
- building relationships,
- improving my writing, reading and overall learning abilities,
- improving my ability to communicate my ideas in a way that will useful to people.
- giving back to a community that has given so much to me
- and perhaps, market my skills when the time comes.
Sidenote
One thing Dr. Greiler said that stuck to me is that , "a 'successful' blog needs 'no readership'. ". I had to read and ruminate on it before I could make meaning of it.
The mistake most people make is that that they let the definition of successful blogging by others affect their own definition and therefore, they get caught up in the whirlwind and lost, forgetting why they started blogging in the first place and the goals they set out to achieve.
EUREKA!!!
I had planned to make this a very short write up, but seems I failed woefully (*inserts laughing emoji). There are still many things I didn't talk about, but maybe another time. Don't let the success of another blog pressure you into missing your goal. Be consistent!
Remember, "if you look really closely, most overnight success took a long time" - Steve Jobs.
Until the midnight sun beams on my pen again, may fair wind keep bugs away from our codes and help those with infected codes debug with the speed of light.
Emmanuel Marabe Omokagbo, November, 2020.