Why I Published a Blog for 15 Years

My first blog post in 2005 was a short few paragraphs on the Power of Fans. While hardly deep, it did ask a question that remains relevant today – “Why don't more brands leverage fans?” The rest is, literally, history. 

I started The Digital Influence Mapping Project to figure out how digital and social media was changing us and would alter business. I am intellectually and insatiably curious but hardly brilliant. By writing posts, I was sketching ideas and points of view that simply helped me form cogent thoughts (mostly). For me, this is a part of lifelong learning. This led me to connect with other bloggers and marketers wrestling with similar issues.

I blogged to make connections with people. The blog became a great device for an introvert to meet like-minded people (equally curious) as digital behaviors and social media swept the world.  Lucky to have a global position at Ogilvy, I met fellow bloggers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Portugal, Brazil, the UK, Turkey and many, many other fantastic places. We held ‘blogger meet-ups’ where I got to shake hands (remember that simple act?) with someone I had only known virtually.

I felt (naively, perhaps) that blogging and social media would connect a community of people, open channels of sharing, and weaken nationalisms.  I fancied myself an aspiring ‘citizen of the world’ vs. an American. I still feel that way today although I do recognize my indelible “American-ness.” I cannot shed that programming any more than I can pretend to not be a white male in a culture that affords privileges based upon superficialities and chance. No flag-waving for me, I’m afraid. I long to simply be another person on an Earth that values and is curious about all people.

The answer to “why did I publish The Digital Influence Mapping Project for fifteen years?” is really just those two things: to learn how digital technologies and behaviors would change us and to meet interesting, smart people from all over.

Curiosity and connection.

Luckily, many of the people I have met I remain connected to today. I wish I could name them all here in gratitude, but I would inevitably screw that up.  Check my connections on LinkedIn (and Twitter). I am guessing most of these smart, fantastic folks are there.   

So, something new is next and it won’t happen on The Digital Influence Mapping Project. Still, fifteen years of blog posts. That’s something.

Comments

[Andrew Nachison]

Thanks for the 15 years John, and allow me to do something as old school as blogging - a comment! Didn't see that coming, did you?

Interesting - I also saw the erosion of borders as a feature, but didn't really think it through on the rise or fall of nationalism. Like a good globalist utopian, I saw fading of borders as a good thing, and that stronger relationships between people everywhere (and reduced friction in relationships between businesses) would lead to stronger relationships between nations. Nope.