I’m not a fan of blogs. To be honest, I rarely read them and I don’t currently use an RSS aggregator. Maybe I’m just lazy. Or perhaps underneath it all I’m just a garden-variety Luddite. I, of course, prefer to view my indifference to blogging as an inclination to cast a critical, analytical eye on anything popular. Those who have brought up the subject of blogs with me have likely heard me say I simply don’t fit the psychological profile of the average blogger.
But here I am writing the initial post for a new blog. And, shockingly, I’m literally thrilled to be doing so, for several reasons. Here’s how I learned to quit worrying and love the blog:
Mike Neuenschwander’s top 10 reasons to quit worrying and love the blog:
10. This is a group blog—Analysts and consultants from Burton Group’s Identity and Privacy Strategies service will all contribute to the blog. This reduces the work load while allowing us to post interesting material regularly.
9. Blogs enable us to respond rapidly to market events, giving our readers our initial reactions to acquisitions, technology announcements, privacy breach notices, etc.
8. The blog format allows me to write in that witty, ironic, satirical tone I usually reserve for Catalyst conferences and vendor briefings.
7. “And you can misquote me on that!” We analysts love to see our names in print. But once you’ve seen yourself quoted in the press you realize, in a profound way, that you really can’t believe everything you read. The blog will allow us to clarify the sound bites you see our names attached to in the press.
6. Industry influence. We’re basically writing this blog so we can have our way with the identity management industry. And YES we have an agenda.
5. Going public. Some of the topics we cover are rather futuristic, and while they are interesting to our subscribers, these topics often fall outside their immediate concerns (our customers are often looking for immediately actionable advice). This blog enables the IdPS team to explore new ideas and influence emerging technologies.
4. It beats working! Sure, we’ve got plenty to do—what with all the dialogues, conferences, travel, and research in our schedules. But we’re hoping to dodge all that by saying, “Eh, I’m working on my blog entry this week.”
3. Keeping up with the Blakley’s. Most of the blogoratti already know Bob Blakley has joined Burton Group as a Principal Analyst, because Blog Bakley blogged about it. Well, if he can do it, so can we.
2. Sure we’re deep and technical, as per our marketing; but with this blog we can be cool and trendy, too!
1. 10 readers for every post!
[posted by Mike Neuenschwander]
