What?
The one where I ask and answer seven questions about what we are doing here
What are we doing here? You are being patient (thank you for that!). Me, I’m trying to find my way.
Earlier this month, I proposed using 5W1H as a framework. Last week, we focused on Who? This week we are asking What?
What is the purpose of this blog?
What are my goals?
What is the focus?
What can you expect?
What are the features of this publication?
What is the problem (that I am trying to solve)?
What are the benefits of reading? Of subscribing?
Let’s dig in, shall we?
What is the purpose of this blog?
The purpose of this blog is to provide a space for me to think, to write, and to share with you. I blogged regularly for many years in the 2000s and 2010s and miss it.
What are my goals?
My goals are to provide value and build community.
What is the focus?
In this blog, I will focus on topics that are interesting and meaningful to me. In an earlier issue, I started to tackle this:
With an audience now, however
smallintimate, I feel some pressure to figure out what this blog is going to be about. The best practice according to many is to focus on one topic or niche. And I may one day. I could pick something and start writing. Leadership. Productivity. Wellness. Photography. Travel. Usability. I have a lot of interests. But it’s important to acknowledge I didn’t start this to create an SEO-optimized content marketing business blog. I’m writing for much the same reason as Sue Likkel, who said recently, “Now I’m trying to find my voice and one tool to accomplish that is writing."These are all still things I love and care about: architecture, branding, business, color (and light!), design, entrepreneurship, film, music, photography, privacy, strategy, travel, typography, urban planning, usability and web/tech.
It’s likely that the seed of this next chapter is somewhere in there.
Here are some of the themes we may engage with in this blog:
Better: design and usability
Built Environment: architecture, urban planning, and the built environment
Business: branding, marketing, entrepreneurship, and strategy
Community: how to build community as an adult
Creativity: writing and photography
Discoveries: learnings and insights
Experiences: travel, nature, and everyday life
Media: impactful books, films and music
Personal Development: leadership, productivity
Technology: web, apps and privacy
What can you expect?
Honesty. Integrity. Sincerity. A genuine desire to share insights, observations and learnings from my lived experience and original research. A receptiveness to your feedback and comments.
Links to original sources when possible.
What are the features of this publication?
Each issue will generally focus on one theme or topic and is designed so that you can read it in a few minutes.
Issues will be published on a regular basis. Currently, the publishing cadence is weekly. I may write more frequently at times.
I will strive to include a themed media embed each week, highlighting a song, a TV show, movie or other bit of content that I think you should know about.
Community is also a feature of this blog. You have the ability (and are encouraged) to chime in the comments on each post. Add your (thoughtful) reactions and impressions. Engage with your fellow readers. We’re all here together so let’s get to know each other.
What is the problem (that I am trying to solve)?
Having a direct relationship with you. You may follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. While each has its place, our relationship is intermediated by an algorithm that neither you nor I control. Maybe you see what I post. Maybe you don’t. It’s hard to sustain a consistent relationship in an environment like that.
Here, if you choose to subscribe, you can relax knowing you will never miss an issue. (Though if you use Gmail, it may initially show up in your Promotions tab — in which case, please drag to the Primary inbox to train Gmail).
Being able to focus on the content. By embracing Substack, I am freed from needing to configure, design and maintain a WordPress installation, themes and plug-ins. Honestly, it is all of that complexity that has kept me from restarting my blog over the past few years. Each January, I thought: this is the year. And then I would get knee deep in web server hosting, WordPress, and ran out of time before I ever got to what I actually wanted to do, which is write. Now, all I have to do is write. :)
Space for longer-form and richer content. This space allows me to write in a way that other places don't. I contribute on LinkedIn regularly and have been impressed by its continuing evolution as a content platform. Still, it is limited in some respects. For instance, you can link to an article or post a photo but not both in the same post. One of the great wonders of the world (for me) is hypermedia. And I love having the ability to quote something, link to a source, and embed a Friday video all in the same issue. The formatting is not as powerful as I would like but the flexibility inspires creativity and creates joy for me. Which, after all, might be a nice side effect. Creating more joy is a good thing, right?
What are the benefits of reading? Of subscribing?
Original perspective. Unique insights. Occasional musings. Delivered weekly.
Something I say just might create a spark inside of you. Inspire you. Encourage you. Motivate you. To do that thing. That you’ve been wanting to do. That you’ve been meaning to do. That you’ve been scared to do. Together, we can learn. We can laugh. We can live better.
Let’s do this!
What if? Close your eyes. Imagine the community we could create together over time. Each committed to being honest, bringing our best selves, sharing our challenges, insights and wisdom, nudging and nurturing one another with the best of intentions to become the best version of ourselves. What a wonderful world indeed.
Until next time,
-bp