Blog Exercises: Why We Dig

In the October issue of The Christian Science Monitor, I found this from John Yemma, Monitor Editor:

Why we dig, and what we may find

Sometimes a portal opens into the world of legend. A stone is rolled away from an Egyptian tomb revealing a 3,300 year old Pharaoh’s power and wealth. A Roman city emerges virtually intact from volcanic ash, its dining tables set for dinner, its comfortable lifestyle interrupted by natural disaster. The mummified body of a Stone Age hunter emerges from a glacier in the Alps, and modern forensics determines from the metallurgy of his ax, his DNA, and the pollen on his clothes that he was the product of a surprisingly sophisticated culture.

With most archaeology, pottery shards and bone fragments provide sketchy evidence of unheralded lives. But even with the abundant material found at places like Pompeii, the stories we tell about lost worlds are speculative. New tools and theories always come along to challenge what we currently think we know.

My mind started racing as I read through introductory paragraphs.

One of the underlying goals of this year of Blog Exercises, beyond celebrating the 10th Anniversary of WordPress, is to get you to dig deep into your reasons for blogging as well as your techniques, to help you blog better. It is what you find when you dig into yourself and your abilities that helps us improve.

Digging into blogging techniques, styles, features, functions, and abilities all year, I’ve rediscovered my passion for blogging, for sharing lessons, thoughts, and experiences online. It’s always been there, but now it has new purpose, new energy driving it forward. That’s what I found when I went digging into blogging.

What about your industry? It might not be about blogging or archaeology, but has depths. Have you plumbed them?

As stated by Yemma, no matter what you think you know about all you know, it takes a new tool or theory to throw out your preconceived notions, changing your perspective and maybe the world’s. Everything we know is based upon speculation, though some facts rise to the surface once in a while. It is that speculation that drives the blogging and web publishing industry.

WordPress was inspired from such speculation, from frustration digging into a blogging tool. Matt Mullenweg was tired of the digging, and shouted out to the world that there must be a better way. Mike Little and others responded to say there was, and they started building WordPress from the ashes of their dig.

And what about yourself and your own blogging techniques and styles? Have you really done the homework to blog and communicate online better? Now is the time.

Your blog exercise is to ask yourself why you dig and what will you find if you dig.

Whatever that above quote means to you, let it trigger a response in a blog post. Uncovering, peeling back the layers of our work, of our industry, of ourselves, that’s the true spirit of blogging. Some call it transparency, I call it sharing. You call it whatever you will, but dig now and see what you will find, and share it with us and others.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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