The boys over at InfoVark tagged me a few weeks back, trying to revive the meme why do you blog? I'll oblige, mainly because I've wanted to write something along these lines for a while.

Why Do I Blog?

This is actually my fourth blog... I tried to get into it before, but it never worked out. I was too busy, I didn't have enough to say, it just didn't feel right. I started this site back in 2006 so I'd have a landing page for my first book. I mentioned bexhuff.com several times in the book so people could come to my site, download the sample code, ask questions, and find links to other ECM resources.

One problem... by the time I finished the book and set it off to the publishers, I still hadn't launched my blog yet!

So... with panic mode setting in... I decided to force myself to write a lot of content before the book hit the shelves. I wrote some good articles, some crappy ones, but I just kept on writing. Writing writing writing! When I thought I wrote enough, I wrote some more, and saved them for later publishing.

Oddly enough, that trigger was what it took for me to finally enjoy blogging. I also noticed that the more I blogged, the better my writing became. These days, I blog for three main reasons:

1. To keep my writing and communication skills sharp.
2. To draw attention to events/articles on the web that deserve commentary.
3. To inject my contrarian opinions into technical matters that my readers might find interesting.

That seems to be a good formula... Google Analytics says I got 170,000 pageviews in 2008... despite virtually zero self-promotion, and no guest bloggers... Not bad for somebody who also works 60 hours per week, runs his own company, writes books, manages an 18-unit condo, and travels ;-)

What Do I Blog?

Initially the topics were a tad scattered... lifehacks, technology, and all that good stuff. These days I try to keep it to software -- specifically in the information management realm -- and connections between it and other topics. I also have occasional posts on science, communication theory, alternative energy, economics, and general half-baked ideas I have... but I try to keep those to one per week.

How Do I Blog?

My blogging technique varies...

If I'm blogging just to keep my writing skills sharp, I'll take a complex subject and do my best to explain it clearly. One of my heroes there is the Nobel Prize wining Physicist Richard Feynman, who firmly believed that if you cannot explain a concept to the average college freshman, then either you're a rotten communicator, or you don't understand the concept very well. I strongly believe that this is true... so when I want to wrap my head around a tricky subject, I try to explain it to the "average educated person." Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail...

If I'm blogging to draw attention to recent events or articles, then I usually start by trolling on the web. I like Digg and Reddit... sometimes I just take a look at what was tagged on Delicious in the past 5 seconds. If something leaps out at me, and I think its appropriate for my readers, I'll mention it. I also follow a lot of B-grade and C-grade bloggers to see if they have penned any original prose. I try to blog twice per week, so I use this technique the most often.

If I'm feeling like writing something contrary to mainstream opinion, then my process is very methodical... it might take days, weeks, or even months to write a post, depending on how strongly held the mainstream opinion is. I usually have a half dozen such blogs in my head at any one time, waiting for the right moment. I covered the my technique in an earlier post: Five Ways To Move Beyond Conventional Wisdom, so I won't bore everybody by repeating the five steps here. I rarely win friends with contrarian posts, but I do voice objections that need to be heard.

Who's Next?

I suppose I'll keep this in the Oracle universe, and tag the following people:

• Billy Cripe
• Dan Norris
• Matt Topper (because he's the new guy at The Apps Lab)
• Eddie Awad
• Chris Bucchere

Have at it, boys!