This is my 100th post, so I thought I should mark the occasion with a few observations about this blogging lark. I promised myself I wouldn’t turn this into another of those ‘why I love blogging’ essays, so I have concentrated on what for me is the essence of its value – the really nutritious bit, the yolk of my blogging egg so to speak.
There was something Vando (who was the first person to link to my blog) wrote, which I’m sure we all identify with, about not having the time to think strategically anymore. I know how he feels. I find that I consistently have to post in moments snatched from the jaws of the latest deadline, but the fact that I do provides me with an unexpected benefit – some kind of weird continuity, direction and a happy structure (of sorts) to my thinking. I may not always be right, but at least I have an opinion. I have an opinion about a lot of things. In fact, since starting this blog, I find I have more opinions than I ever knew.
And that, for me, is the nub of it. I love the challenging thinking, the new connections, the fun, the openness, the ‘effortless internationalism’ (to paraphrase Richard). But most of all I love the opinion – the fact that I can shoot my mouth off via my keyboard and someone will want to read it, the fact that I can easily and efficiently be exposed to (sometimes radical) new thinking on the state and future state of the industry I work in, the fact that it is all so gloriously uncorporate.
The name of this blog is a quote from Malcolm Muggeridge and I chose it because it seemed to express neatly how difficult it can often be to challenge, to question, confront, to go against the tide. But also what a fantastically life-enhancing thing to do it frequently is.
So to all those people who swim against the flow and whose blogs I read, I salute you (there are far too many to mention but just some of the more recent swimmers include Paul, Manish, Jason, Stan, Amelia, Dino, Jon, Doug and Faris) . I’d better sign off before this turns into a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscars speech.
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