In recent weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about this site, and it’s sister blog p7r.io and deciding what to do next with one or both of them.
The problem with blogs is that it is so easy for them to die. A few weeks of negligence, and they lose their vibe. Also, I’ve struggled to identify what content is most suitable in both places, because whatever content I think of requires a slightly different format.
Last week as I sketched out various ideas, a phrase hit me out of the blue: “Projects not Posts”.
I don’t want to write posts. I want to work on projects. I am a developer, data miner, machine learning scripter, meta-programming type of guy with a deep interest in writing fiction, public policy, politics, technology, teaching coding, entrepreneurship, agile and lean methods and a whole load of other stuff besides.
I frequently think “I should do something around ‘x’” only to realise it doesn’t fit into a blog narrative, nor does it really suit a blog of its own, and so it gets dropped.
Why? Why not just drop the blog structure entirely? Why not go back to a traditional “personal website” structure? It might sound ridiculous to go back to some Geocities-era concept, but I’ve come to realise short-form writing doesn’t allow me to do what I actually want, and I spend more time thinking about what a blog “should” be rather than just sharing cool stuff.
Also - and here’s the killer - I want to work on much bigger projects than any blog can reasonably accomodate. I want to roll out applications, publish long-form writing, and other forms that don’t “fit” the blog format. That leads me to thinking that in this renaissance age of self-publishing I should be looking at playing with structure, and other forms of output (possibly even, dare I say it, books…)
You know what makes blogging work? RSS. However I can still maintain an RSS feed, and most people now “subscribe” to content via Twitter or Facebook if they’re interested. And everything else? For me it’s a block.
So, some 11 years after the original incarnation of iconoplex and 6 months after the first incarnation of p7r.io, I’ve decided that they will “merge” (both domains will point to the same content), and the content they hold will be… different.
I’m going to spend the next month starting a few projects and getting some content ready for “launch”, but for now it seems, blogging is over for me. Something much more exciting will follow.
