Investigate Your Value

by DShan on December 10, 2009

Tagged as: bloggers, blogging, blogs, value

Post image for Investigate Your Value

To me it says we’re all lost.

We shouldn’t be talking about what really matters, as bloggers.  As writers.  As gardeners, managers, executives, joggers, eaters.  It should not ever, ever, be a question as to quantity and quality.  It should never be a discussion about whether we are all in a room looking to score the most points, or whether we’re looking to help one another be better versions of ourselves.

This is relevant to those of you who read my blog and aren’t bloggers.  Maybe you aren’t all that concerned about what’s being tossed about in the digital conversation.  You’re looking for something personal or narrative or useful when you read what I write.

I don’t care who’s reading this.

We’re all here to try and leave things a little better than they were handed over to us.

We’re all here to find something that motivates us, and when we do, we’re supposed to run down that corridor until it splits into another decision.  If that’s agriculture, so be it.  If that’s research, carry on.  If that’s writing, kudos.

Hobby or profession, public or anonymous, we either show up and we try to further the experience or we don’t.

We could all spend our time planning out our route to money, promotions, fame, comments, traffic, or attention and we could all meet back here in a year or two or ten and take a tally.  That’s completely possible. Does it matter?  Not one bit.

What we could also do is, when we get that rare chance, add something to the overall experience.  It could be a random act of kindness.  A particularly impressive brief or project analysis.   A killer blog post.  A project that transcends work and play.

A stunt.  An idea.  An experiment.

That only difference might be that all your comments and traffic, dollars and cents could amount to a lot of people who tell you that you’re great, or you might have ability to buy couches (or send your kids to school, in certain cases).

Or it might just turn out that…

…your truly unique, exciting value will be measured on your meaningful contribution to the overall effort, and amount to the way people remember you.

Pick your priority.

Photo by Hamed Saber.

I bet you aren't subscribed to my RSS feed and my daily music project, are you.

  • Iva
    This is such an important post {ok, like all of yours...} so strong, well written, full of depth and meaning. Blogging truly is a community, a base, a source of comfort, and outlet, an outreach, a learning center....values are the foundation for anything.. if each post holds meaning, a thought, an interpretation, etc. the possibilities of what blogging can do are endless. You never know whose heart you might be touching, whose eyes you might open, or who you just might be making even smile.

    If there was an blogging 101 course {is there?! lol} .....I think this post should be included in its curriculum ;)
  • Iva! Thanks! Don't you think there should be Blogging 101 courses? I do.


    The possibilities of blogging are endless...that's so true.
  • DShan- Been reading through your work and I like it. (especially the mixtape stuff on twitter, can't stop with that freaking hindustani gangster "Hello Brooklyn").

    For what it's worth, I kinda got the gist of what you were saying in this post, but I found it a tough read or hard to follow or something. If you could sum up this post in one sentence, what's the message?
  • I knew it was a little blurry; I think because the thoughts started on a
    back and forth via twitter, the vein of it is hard to kind of nail down
    based on this blog post.

    Put simply, I think the message is that your value to the online community
    is measured in your contributions to its quest for relevance and real value
    to everyone involved. Your comment counts, traffic, and the rest just
    aren't where the substance of all this is found.

    I'm glad you liked the music...I LOVE sharing music.
  • Thanks for clarifying. I hope it didn't come across as questioning your art, thought process or the way you choose to express them. I felt as if we were hanging out, and you were explaining this to me, and I could feel your passion on the topic, but I just wasn't getting the exact point you were speaking about. Anyway, back to "Hello Brooklyn"...
  • Man, I love this post. Reminds me of the one thing I believe while all else is fallible:

    I believe in the power of art. The art of conversation, art of the written word, the paint on canvas, the song sung, the movement of bodies.

    And to your point, the way I remember you, is a man whose words were written as a call to action. And that's why I keep coming back.
  • Man, you lay some killer compliments on me.

    I believe in the power of art too. I couldn't have summed it up better. I
    believe that we're an art community, too.
  • Yes. This. (And not just because you mentioned agriculture and gardening.)
  • Flowers! Sunshine!
  • foiledcupcakes
    It's interesting you say "…your truly unique, exciting value will be measured on your meaningful contribution to the overall effort, and amount to the way people remember you."

    When my son was first born, I really wanted to raise the *perfect* child. The one who got straight A's, played music and sports, was popular, successful, and spoke four languages. And then I brought home a colicky baby from the hospital and gave up on that goal within a week.

    I have since grown to love, cherish, and embrace his passionate, fierce personality. Knowing full well that he'll become whoever he's meant to be and not what *I* necessarily think he should aspire to, the only thing I can do is to try to instill this message in every thought, action, and conversation I have with him: be respectful of people, be tolerant, and contribute.

    So I really, really appreciate your post. Thanks for saying, much more eloquently, what I am trying to teach my kid every single day.

    And now I'm done pretending you're a mommy blogger. :)
  • Eight years. At least. I've been writing online for eight years, just
    hoping to be accepted as a mommy blogger.

    Thank you for completing my journey:)

    Jokes aside, I think it's an interesting perspective...I feel like we forget
    sometimes that we're all susceptible to the idea that we can do everything
    right. That there's a perfect, and we just need to figure out what it is
    and be it. We find idols and hope to emulate them.

    In the end we forget to really put and effort into contributing what we've
    got. Give us what you've got, and ask your community to help you become the
    things you're hoping to become. Find happiness in the process of being a
    critical part of the discussion you care about and your name on a billboard
    won't matter.

    You're spot on with your son; keep him straight by giving him the confidence
    to trust his uniqueness. Right? The smartest people I've met all have a
    quiet intellectual self-confidence. The confidence came first, and in my
    mind is a product of their upbringing. Those people in the online community
    are the people quietly trying to push the envelope. Bridging relationships
    with no underlying motives. They're the ones who seem to be at the center
    without the name on the billboard.

    In my mind, their mom's should be proud:)
  • foiledcupcakes
    Wait. This post was about blogging?

    Shows what a lame blogger I am, huh? :)

    Or, it just shows that what you write can apply in many different ways - even parenting. Mommy bloggers of the world unite!
  • I'm such a mommy blogger. It kills me.
  • This reminds me when I had a conversation of a friend who is self-employed as a "professional motivational speaker." He kept on talking about numbers and he did not understand why I do what I do. He kept on asking me, "What is Phampants?" He was just baffled that I'm not in for the money or the fame. I just told him flat out, it's more than numbers and hits.

    What is phampants? Like I said a few posts ago, Phampants is about me, a nobody, hoping to inspire somebody.
  • Well said; I think writing or vlogging or WHATEVER is a form of expression
    that gives everyone a chance to try and impart something onto the fabric of
    other people. Is it as noble as traditional forms of art or expression,
    like painting or sculpture? Maybe not, maybe so. Is it as important to the
    arc of literature in the way novels might face critique? Probably not. Is
    it a form of communication that's exciting enough to warrant quite a deal of
    respect and consideration, absolutely.
  • Hmmm. Now I wonder where I am in the grand scheme of all this.

    Posts like this one get me thinking, probably too critically, about my value here. Am I providing any? Do I care? I don't know. Posts like this make me paranoid that I suck at (blogging) life and that I should just quit. Or get better.

    Then I remember that what I'm writing is basically a brain dump and if people don't like it, fine. I'm not trying to make money here. I'm probably never going to be offered free shit to giveaway because ultimately, I have no topic. My topic changes EVERY POST.

    Numbers are fun. Comments are great. I'm not ashamed to say that I get amped when people comment because that means that they relate - somehow. And when I brain dump and people relate - then it makes me feel a little less lost in this world.

    Does that translate to me adding value? I don't know. And I don't know that I'm SUPPOSED to know.
  • I think the value we all have is in our contribution to the conversation and
    the blogging community. I don't think it has anything to do with holding to
    a topic or any specific 'rules' to writing. If you're making an effort to
    write honestly, communicate with the people in your community, and give back
    once in a while, then great. If you're focused on the limelight, awards, or
    traffic then don't pretend otherwise.

    Capitalism is an old science. Community is an evolving one.

    See, for me, it's not that people who focus on 'winning' (to simplify the
    conversation a little) aren't wrong...they aren't evil. "They" might be a
    person or a company or a group, and they might have a goal in mind that's
    admirable and sensible. That's fine. We could circle over to Matt's post
    about Mashable and in my estimation see a publication that's great at what
    it does as an effort to win.

    On the other hand, we have a community, as bloggers, and that community
    needs to maintain its humanity. We need to be writers first. We need
    thought leaders. We need useful, inspiring, fruitful conversation. We need
    experimentation and fun and confidence. People will look back on the
    explosion in self-publishing these past few years and they'll point at the
    things, ideas, and forms of expression they have and wonder what it was like
    to be there at the beginning.

    I don't mean to make all this sound more important than it is; we all just
    write about stuff online. Some write about their lives, and some write
    about shoes. Some write about writing online. Nevertheless, I think if
    you're interested in being a part of the underlying conversation, the
    community itself, then treat it like you would any other community you care
    about.

    ....longest comment on my own blog ever, methinks.
  • Definitely you add value. The foundation of what I know of Social Media has come from your sharing. I don't think you're a person who has to focus on "Am I adding value". You would do it anyway
  • Thank you so much for saying that! I honestly don't consider myself a
    source of info, to be honest; this here's a personal blog and I try to keep
    it pretty narrative (it's the kind of writing I just need to be writing, as
    it were)...but I'm glad you've found value otherwise. I kind of wish I had
    a place to be more of a 'source' on our community, but then again I'm not
    sure I'd do a better job than those who are already doing it.
  • "What we could also do is, when we get that rare chance, add something to the overall experience. "

    Amen. This is precisely why I love Improv Everywhere and the amazing experience they bring to the everyday lives of random people.

    At the end of the day, it's a matter of deciding what matters. Thanks for the reminder :)
  • I love improv! I love the effort it takes to create an engaging experience
    on the spot. To react to an audience purely so you might give them what
    they're looking for. It's great to watch, and we're in the right city for
    it.
  • Well said DShan - Kudos to a Twitter conversation inspiring some good thought on our blogs this morning. I'm right in line with you - I don't care who reads my blog - I hope a lot of people from all different walks of life, but I don't want to limit myself down to one specific demographic.

    What Mashable is doing - for better or for worse - and as David Spinks so aptly put - is bridging the gap between out tight knit "blogging" community, and the rest of the online world - the casual browsers who don't spend half the day on reading blog posts. We need those platforms (one that I can only hope my blog continues to evolve into) that bring people from all over together.

    Comments, traffic - all that is nice - it looks cool on the surface - but the one on one connections my blog and other blogs have facilitated is the meat and potatoes of why I invest the time I do into this.
  • Well said here, my friend. The conversation got me thinking about Mashable
    a lot; I use it as a search engine. I don't 'read' it but I like knowing
    they're covering the space enough to establish who is doing what, which
    'tools' are actually legit, etc.

    But yeah, I think bloggers get caught up overthinking the importance of
    awards, links, SEO, design, etc; they get so ruffled by the fact that it's
    hard to build an audience (or community, preferably) and they forget to just
    push forward. To do the same things that got them their fifth reader.
    Their tenth reader.

    It's infectious when a blogger loves what they're doing, plain and simple.
    It's attractive when they put more into a community than they get out of
    it. I think we all need to remember that sometimes.
  • Man, I cannot tell you how much this is resonating with me right now. 2010 is going to be very much a back to basics year for me. Not that I've lost it, but I need to focus on writing for me - because I do GENUINLEY love doing it - I'm the kind of person that just feels a release and feels more empowered by things once I can get them written down. I'm passionate about it, and I don't want to get myself caught up in the numbers game that so many are. Numbers are nice to look at, but who cares if you have 10 or 100 comments on a post? Honestly? Valuing the conversation is one thing, but counting numbers day in and day out is the quickest path to blogging burn out.

    Such good thoughts all around D. I'm taking the weekend to unplug - do some old fashioned pen and pad writing, and a lot of thinking. Cheers!
  • Cheers to you! I am super duper excited for 2010...I think it will be a
    bunch of fun and bunch of really crazy awesome thoughts and blogging. Enjoy
    the tech break:)
blog comments powered by Disqus


Previous post:

Next post: