Today, Jeff Moss, an Oracle blogger has left the building. I have also noticed that there are other Oracle bloggers who have not updated their blogs for many months, an implicit indication that they too have gone on hiatus. Looks like “blogger burnout” has finally taken its toll.
I have gathered a couple of quick thoughts on the subject of blogger burnout:
Chris thinks:
blogging can be so rewarding, so engrossing, that we begin to forget there are other things that need to be done. For those of you with careers outside of our blogging, where blogging is a fun distraction, this can be quite threatening to the mortgage payments so be careful!
Lanny thinks:
Part of the problem is simply that those who burn the candle brightest are likely not leading full rounded lives but instead getting so absorbed in the moment and the possibilities that may exist that they are inadvertently putting themselves on an emotional roller coaster with little reserve left over for dealing with the tough but pragmatic issues that emerge from “day job” part of their lives. Periodically, I’m in that boat.
I agree with both Chris and Lanny. Do you? So far, I have managed to balance the different aspects of my life, what about you?
Possibly related:
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Lanny’s comment is dead-on for me. He described me 100%.
March 27th, 2006, at 1:52 pm #What’s the blogging frequency, Kenneth ?
Well it depends on a few factors. What I am doing at home. What I am doing at work. Where I am located but I will try to keep it up at least until my first birthday in August 2006.
March 27th, 2006, at 3:16 pm #Hi Eddie,
The warm yellow is gone the - style is very different.
first i was schocked because of you new design. The first time i connected to your site i thought my browser
is damaged for some reason!
But it’s ok!
Now to the burnout :
From the Start of my blog activites i was not able to post an article every day.
I got a little bit stressed because of the other bloggers and their frequency.
I must admit that to be noticed by Oracle Community is very important for me and so i invested a lot of time to post some stuff.
Now i moved to antother concept. Due to Wordpress 2.0 and support of stastic pages my content i want to build is more then a library then news oriented blog. And i like this too.
To avoid some stress to get notifed and be seen by the rest of the blogging oracle community
i will not add my blog in future to blog lists.
What not changed is the fascination of www based publishing
March 28th, 2006, at 2:41 am #Greetings
Karl
Last but not least -
i am learning to concentrate;
With family you do not have a lot time surfing/reading aswering blog, writing own blogs;
I must know what i really targets and priorities are.
That’s what i learned
Karl
March 28th, 2006, at 3:23 am #An excellent timing! I was just thinking on the other day about how long I would be able keep it up the way I was going. I emptied the tank. I have about 10 drafts in my dashboard and a list of features I wanted to add to the blog, and no time to do it. Luckily, I am done with major admin changes. (A post about it is coming up soon
I guess it all comes down to expectations we set for ourselves. It helps if you don’t blog for the sake of blogging, but the blog helps you with something else you do in your life. It also helps to have a group of contributors where there is always someone to pitch in to keep the blog alive.
Keep it real. After all, a blogger is “someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do” (Guy Kawasaki).
Marian
March 28th, 2006, at 1:53 pm #Andy: What’s the blogging frequency
I believe that the higher the frequency you post to your blog, or feel that you have to post, the more likely it is to get the “blogger burnout”.
Karl: i was schocked because of you new design
Is it that bad?
Karl: targets and priorities
That’s the key. Balance your life according to your goals and priorities.
Marian: the blog helps you with something else you do in your life…Keep it real
I agree. Do not make your blog your life. BTW, I noticed that you too have changed the WP theme of your blog. Looks good.
March 28th, 2006, at 10:36 pm #Is “blogger burnout” any different than, say, “forum burnout” (people that post regularly to a particular forum)?
Burnout is burnout. I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of the bloggers have been sharing their thoughts for years, but maybe they just didn’t start using the “blogging” medium until this past year or so.
I don’t think there’s anything here specific to blogging.
March 29th, 2006, at 5:54 am #Robert, yes but the difference is that if you own a blog, it’s yours, you maintain it. It’s more personal. If you do not post to it, no one else will. However, you do not own a forum like forums.oracle.com for example. If you do not post a question or an answer to a forum, no one will notice, especially in active forums. However, if you do not post to your blog, your loyal readers will most likely miss you.
March 29th, 2006, at 9:08 pm #@Robert
March 29th, 2006, at 9:44 pm #I aggree with Eddie,
working for example in the Oracle Perfomance Forum is very different to blogging. For your blog you have all the opportunites to design/create Content. You even could write some university level stuff if somedbodey is interested. A forum always is targeted to the special need of the forum, nothing else.
But as you said there could be a forum burnout and a blog burnout which results in low or none activity.
Greetings
Karl
I usually just use one of the many aggregators (including yours Eddie!) and I don’t even really notice when one of the 20+ authors I read has gone silent for awhile.
In fact, when you use an aggregator, and read the comments, the blogging community seems exactly like a distributed forum.
Starting a new thread: Posting an article in your blog.
Replying to a thread: Commenting on someone else’s article on their blog.
Browsing a forum: Reading through an aggregator.
Going straight to someone’s blog, to me, is like searching a forum only for threads started by a particular author.
March 30th, 2006, at 8:02 am #I started my blog back in June 2002 at the suggestion of my then manager Jeremy Allaire. He posted on CFGURU, suggesting “everyone” on the list started blogging about ColdFusion to help spread information. I set up a reminder in my calendar to send me an email every week day at 11am to remind me to blog and I only delete emails after blogging something. I do sometimes get behind - and the email reminders mount up - but eventually I clear the backlog.
I like blogging but it’s not the be-all and end-all. If I don’t have anything to say, I let the email reminder hang around. Some weeks I blog hardly at all, some weeks I blog a lot. Mostly it depends on what I’m working on (and what I’m allowed to blog about that!).
I think reading and commenting on other people’s blogs is where you can fall into the deep dark hole… I subscribe to 200+ feeds and mostly just skim headlines in a few groups (even tho’ many people think I’m very prolific!). I read blogs as a break from things that I’m stuck on - it helps loosen the thought processes.
March 31st, 2006, at 10:38 am #