When I started blogging in 2006, I was on a vacation. I had a “real job,” which brought me financial stability without engaging my intelligence or talent. (At one point, my only responsibility was to make a monthly powerpoint, not kidding.)
I was thinking about the future. How could I be creative, when my paying job didn’t seem to want or require this of me?
What could I do or be, and where could I fit?
When I pressed “publish” for the first time, I felt a thrill I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was the thrill of rebellion, of freedom. Of risk.
At first I was blogging, and learning, about the intersection of environmental sustainability and business. Maybe I would fit there?
When I heard Majora Carter say, “Sustainability means not wasting people,” on a favorite radio program (now podcast) it lit a spark.
This gave me one of many noodges back to doing the work that I am best at, the work I’m doing today: helping people to do a better job of managing other people at work.
We grow and age, and become more of who we are.
The internet sure has changed since 2006. In my early blogging days, Valeria Maltoni and a prominent environmental outlet linked to me in highly viewed posts, and drove traffic to my blog. (Thank you!)
In 2006, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit were not major homes on the internet, Medium didn’t exist. Search algorithms hadn’t evolved into blog-burying ad outlets that fail to surface offbeat content. There was no Greek chorus urging us to write for free for exposure, or to blog every day.
As my business has grown and evolved, I learned that the time it takes to make good public blog posts doesn’t pay the rent. The people I work with don’t wake up and read blogs.
I’ve also found that many people don’t talk about people management in public venues. The best conversations about managing people veer into private, even tender territory — and for this to be meaningful and valuable, it takes relationship, context and trust.
So I started to focus on non-public interactions, in real life and online. Today, when I write a blog post, it’s reflecting trends I’m seeing through my experience in more intimate settings.
When I take time to post something here, it’s also because I think it will be a useful asset for me to share in the future. And, valuable for those who find this space randomly, or because someone told them that they might like to work with me.
While I’ll continue to post 3-4 times a year here, some of the effort I once spent blogging now goes to my monthly newsletter. While it’s not private, there’s no public archive.
If you found this post — or are one of the few who receive it via RSS — thank you!
And thank you, Internet, Blogger, WordPress, Valeria Maltoni, and old job that didn’t use all of my bandwidth. Thank you all for more than a decade of blogging.
Photo: Wonewok by Alan Light, via Flickr under CC 2.0 license.
Anne Libby 
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