Looking back, one year of blogging

Wednesday, 2 Aug 2006 | Blogging

A year ago today, I sent an email to a small group of people announcing this website. With my departure to Asia just around the corner, I figured this is a good time to look back.

I started writing this weblog as an experiment. I wanted to use it to keep friends and family up to date on developments in the process of my move. And I also felt it would help me in structuring the countless notes, thoughts and ideas. Writing these articles, I felt, would help me stay organized and I could reference those articles later. Did it work out this way? Not quite.

Many friends and members of my family do read the website or are kept up to date about it through others. So I certainly reached that goal. I have, from the beginning, always been very surprised about the amount of feedback I get - very little. I can tell people read it by the remarks they make, but I always expected people to respond more. I have gotten the odd response from people I never knew before, it’s cool that even people who don’t know me personally read my weblog. It never really helped me in organizing my ‘countless notes, thoughts and ideas’. I did write a lot of articles about unemployment benefits, stuff with work, etc. But never used them as a reference, once I had figured something out it was in my head. And writing the article never really helped in the figuring out either. Plus, I think it was not very interesting for you to read.

Did I achieve my goals? Well, it was always an experiment and meant to ‘see what happens’. So in that sense, yeah, I did succeed. You really can’t fail a goal of ‘see what happens’, right? And I did succeed in keeping people informed, but writing the articles didn’t do much else. Did I at least have fun writing them? Well, yeah, I did. But it often felt like, as my friend Andrea says, “doing it for the glory”. It’s very one-way. And I often feel awkward writing an article, wondering if perhaps I’m spamming the mailbox of those that have subscribed. Writing and copying the same email and sending it to everyone would perhaps garner more response.

So here I am, looking back on 1 year and writing almost a 150 articles. And I’m faced with a choice to continue or not…

I think if I continue, I’ll have to change the site a little bit. Thinking about this and discussing with a few people, I think there are a few different groups of people that have different information needs when using my site.

• Family and friends that are closer to me or have more of an affinity with the medium, the English language¹ and are able to figure out if something is interesting for them or not. You’re probably interested in most of what I’ve written on here, aside from the articles about unemployment benefits and what not. Your main goal for continuing to read this site I think is because you want to know how I’m doing and what my observations are when living in a different culture.
  
  
• Family and friends who for one reason or the other do not belong to the former group. You probably only want some information every once in a while, with a general overview of what I’ve been up to and what my life is like. And perhaps, a Dutch version of such a ‘briefing’ would be welcome for people like my grandparents or those with a lesser command of the English language.
  
  
• And ofcourse those people in a similar situation or considering making a similar move. You probably do like the ‘how-to’ articles, summaries and tips and tricks type things that I’ve written in the past and would probably continue to do so in the future. You’re probably also interested in my observations about intercultural life, but probably less so in hearing how it made me feel to say goodbye for the first time.

The above is all about the articles I write about my move to (and soon, living in) Asia. There are ofcourse the other writings I’ve published. I’ve stopped myself from publishing more of these articles several times. I feel a weblog is at it’s best when it has a certain focus. And me telling you what I think² of the effect the increase in international transfers of professional soccer players has had on the standard of living in rural Madagascar, well, really has no place on this site. But I do have the urge to sometimes publish useless or useful articles about other issues than just Asia. And with this I mean things ranging from a commentary on what I think of the immigration situation in the Netherlands to what happened when I went for dinner at a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars. To accomodate this, I could set up a seperate weblog which nobody would ever read because of the low volume. Or I could change this site in such a way that it’s about me and not so much about Asia. That would allow me to publish other writings as well.

Do let me know what you think. It will help me figure out where (if anywhere) to take this site next.