Friday, December 28, 2007

My blogging resolutions

I'm making eight blogging resolutions for 2008

  1. Comment more. Due to shifting over to reading blogs by rss feed I've starting taking in a lot more posts, but it's also discouraged me from commenting as much. Seeing as comments are what makes blogging what it is I'm resolving to pay more attention to the comments sections, if only to let people out there know that their time and effort is appreciated.
  2. Get the carnival of socialism moving again. I'm a fan of carnivals. They bring bloggers together and help put people in touch with like minded sites they may not have seen before. I know John is keen to see the idea resurrected and I'm sure it's a do-able project that just needs a little momentum to get going.
  3. Assist Green Party bloggers make a little more headway. I suspect this involves a few things. Firstly, create some kind of group blogging effort for the February conference in Reading. Second, try to develop a Green Home project in the same way that Labour, Liberal and Conservative bloggers have done - with some success. Third, see if we can make more of a community around progressive blogging more generally.
  4. Sort out a laptop for every donkey. This picture blog started out as some sort of brain scrape of all the the bizarre pics and cartoons I keep finding but can't find any real use for. However, I'm a real believer that blogs are really good at specialised niches. What's more specialised than a daily series of idiotic pictures? I just need to hone the idea a little.
  5. Get those guests posts rolling in. The spirit is willing but the flesh is oh so weak sometimes. I've really enjoyed those guest posts that people were kind enough to provide for me, I'd like to see more of them, and maybe I'll do a few interviews too. Consider yourself invited.
  6. Improve and expand that pesky right hand column. Since the change over to the new design I've paid precious little attention to my links column. I'd like to flesh it out a little with left field and green leaning blogs - but also with just decent content for recreation, local sites and worthy publications. I might even put in a couple more rss feeds. Suggestions more than welcome.
  7. Get the balance right between quantity and quality. I'm always pleased when I've posted something I feel might be worth reading and have tended to avoid posting for the sake of it or simply cut and pasting news or press releases. However, it can lead to dry patches when I'm busy or not particularly inspired. I may experiment with a few micro-posts and up the pace a little - but what I don't want to do is develop a continuous stream of tripe... that would a concern.
  8. Keep having fun with it. I came into this blog making a pact with myself, that this blog was always going to be for me rather than for others - but that, with luck, that would make this blog funnier, more interesting and more personable than if I'd set out with some kind of self important grandeur to set the world to rights and become a blogging heavy weight. This probably explains some of my more eccentric postings. I want to keep that spirit alive. Theoretically I'm prepared to drop the blog the moment it becomes a chore - hopefully it won't come to that - but I do hope I'll continue to have fun, make friends and never be afraid to try a little experiment here and there.
If I was the meme-ing sort I'd probably send this on but I'm not, so I wont.

6 comments:

Dave Riley said...

That's right: comment more.

blackstone said...

get the socialism blog carnival active again!

that is all!

Rupert said...

Yes: we badly need 'Www.GreenPartyHome.Blogs.Org'. This should be a top priority for we Green bloggers.
As for a group blog from Conference - could do; but maybe a better idea is to start PLANNING it at this Conference, and do it really stunningly WELL at Autumn Conference. I'd be well up for that.

Chris Hyland said...

There definately needs to be a GreenHome. To start with it could just be somewhere that reproduces posts from other blogs.

Jim Jepps said...

I think that's right Chris - we could provide a simple aggregator, although if we did that I'd be keen on having some human editorial input as some blogs bombard the reader with millions of small posts - which is fine on their blog - but the effect of this would be to push off bloggers who blogs less frequently but with more thought.

There are a few people up for this idea already - perhaps February's Reading conference could be used to some effect in making this happen?

Rupert - on blogging from conference I don't know if I'll get a chance to sort this - but I think it would be better to do this in a rough and ready way - possibly with the support of other agencies - and use the experience to do something more polished next time.

Rupert said...

OK Jim; You're the boss. Let's try it.
Excellent discussion of this topic -- i.e. of 'Www.GreenPartyHome.Blogs.Org' in more detail now going on at the Green Party Facebook grou -- I am now heading over there...