It’s Monday and the temperature outside has plummeted to (for UK standards) freezing temperatures. Since the start of this month I have blogged more often again, aiming for a post on most weekdays. In the best tradition of the medium, I am going to blog about blogging today.
Why now?
During the recent [insert your own word here] on Twitter, and a subsequent re-activation of my Mastodon account, I was reading some really interesting reflections on what folk were hoping to leave behind (on Twitter), what they were hoping to find and contribute to (on Mastodon) and what they aim for overall with their digital presence.
It made me feel both sad and hopeful. Most of all, it made me consider what it is that I WANT from my time here on the internet.
Not the activities that are part of my day job for which I need to maintain profiles on particular platforms, but those parts that are shaped by what I want to do and who I want to interact with.
Which brought me back to my own domain, this space, that for many years has been my own platform, unchanged by the ebbs and flows of digital fortunes.
Thanks to Reclaim Hosting (#4life) I have long been able to administrate and safeguard my own space, giving me a channel for my own voice, my things, my creativity and projects.
What am I hoping for?
My blog has a regular readership in the hundreds, so not particularly huge, and I mostly blog for myself. Sometimes to curate resources to refer to, sometimes to share practical tips, but largely it’s a space for me to think about what I am interested in and share parts of that.
In 2020 I really struggled for what to say. Work kept going, but my professional practice was so dominated by the crisis response, that I found it hard to articulate anything.
Since then, I have published a lot on different platforms, but most of it is very much directed at the work I do, focused on projects like my book or specific events.
More recently, with the Twitter/Mastodon conversation in full swing, I came to the conclusion that I need to blog more. To hear my own voice represented here. I am not sure yet whether I really ‘need’ another social media platform, federated or otherwise, but I do want my own space to be alive and kicking. I started blogging more than 20 years ago (and I can’t believe that I am old enough for that to be true) and I am grateful that I can continue that practice here, on my own domain.
I have been thinking about you Maren and lovely others so much over the last weeks. I agree with you about blogging more (or podcasting or updating our personal spaces or engaging in different group/network spaces or …) I am cooking up an idea that I hope to share with you and others later this week or next.
I remember that my first blog was subtitled – If a tree fell in the forest would it make a sound? – that makes me think about what you say “ but I do want my own space to be alive and kicking”. There’s so much to think about creating a personal space and connecting – and I am also thinking about FemEdTechQuilt here. We migrate across platforms and maintain our personal spaces – and I think we have acquired knowledge that we can pool and build on. And the we isn’t just the humans 😉