A Personal Blog
Feedback Wanted: Starting Blogging Again
As anyone who knows me knows, over the last few years my blogging has slowed down from roughly 10 posts a week to roughly 10 posts a year. Most of this is due to all of my free time being sucked up by b5media. And another chunk is because I do most of my communicating, ideas, networking on Twitter. But some of it is because I simply didn’t have any inspiration for blogging.
-

- Image by Matthew Burpee via Flickr
A few weeks ago, over lunch with Jay Goldman he mentioned his 10×10 rule, which is basically: write out 10 ish big areas you’re interested in blogging about, and 10 ish ideas for each. That is your first 100 ish posts (though realistically you’ll have other ideas along the way), so it’s 2-4 months of blogging.
As you might expect, I decided to do the exercise just to see what happened. I’ve wanted to blog more for the last year, but lacked more than a post at a time. This would hopefully provide fodder for many posts over the coming months.
But I ran into a conundrum, because the topics were more diverse than I expected (at least the ones that excited me). Now the fitness/health stuff I’ve already decided to break off into a separate site, so it’s not on this list, but here’s what I’ve come up with:
- Top entrepreneurs in canada interviews/profiles
- Canadian company profiles
- Running a blog network
- Canadian VC firm profiles
- Online advertising
- Scaling a blog / media company
- How to raise funding
- Technical challenges of running a blog network / online media company
- Ideas for thriving in a down economy
- Social media / new media tools we use at b5media
- Interviews with bloggers I admire

- Image by tyfn via Flickr
I’ve put these into 2 big buckets: b5media CEO blog, and more of a journalism/startup kind of blog. Part of this is a deep desire to see Canadians gain more profile. As a country, we suck at tooting our own horns, so I’d like to take time to toot our collective horns for us. Part of it is also looking to help folk who were like me 4 years ago: knowing there were ways to scale their company but having no idea how or who to talk to or what the options were or who the people in the industry even were.
So I’m looking for some feedback, on a few specific questions (but feel free to give feedback overall):
- Should I keep Ensight a personal blog?
- Should I retire Ensight, cause it has so much history and just start fresh?
- Should the CEO stuff live here, if I am keeping it a personal blog, or somewhere else?
- Should I split the “media” stuff off?
- Should I split the “startup” stuff off?
- Should I split the Canadian journalism/entrepreneur stuff off?
- Would splitting the Canadian stuff off seem weird, given TechVibes/StartupNorth are already doing some of this (to varying degrees)?
And finally: are there other topic areas you’d like to hear me blog about?
I’m opening this up mostly because I could be happy going multiple ways, but I am a big believer in splitting topics up so that you feel less like a monolithic subject staring you in the face when you want to blog.
So, thoughts, questions, comments, concerns?
| Print article | This entry was posted by Jeremy Wright on May 12, 2009 at 10:49 am, and is filed under From My Life, Work, Writing. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 2 years ago
Hmmm. On the one hand, I just want to see you blog more. But on the other apologetic hand, I really wanna see a Canadian focused tech blog.
Dunno about splitting the CEO stuff off, as it’s part of *you*, you know? Definitely keep ensight around though.
about 2 years ago
I hope you’ll start blogging again, J. Twitter is great, but it just doesn’t have the space to flesh out ideas. This post vs. your tweet about it are prime examples. From the tweet, I know you’re thinking of starting blogging again. But from this post, I can see why, what prompted it and how you’d like to approach it. It lets me know more about your process, instead of being just a passing thought/tweet that I may not give more than 5 seconds attention to.
As a b5 blogger, I find your blog makes you more ‘present’, even though you may not talk about b5 all the time. I like to eavesdrop on the boss’s thoughts that way, :).
As for splitting it, nah, just keep it as it is, multiple topics and all.
about 2 years ago
I think writing on “separate” blogs will keep things both neat and easy to write to keep things focused. And most importantly it’s easy enough to create a “blog network” and just link all your blogs together ala TechCrunch.
Think of each blog as a category: personal, entrpreneur, Canadian tech… and of course use the existing blogs like Startup North, etc. as builing blocks since everyone in the Canadian entpreneur and tech spaces is interested in it expanding.
My two cents :)
about 2 years ago
Well first thing to think about is audiences. I would imagine a non-CEO personal blog would be more about yourself and personal branding , theres one side. Having a combined personal/b5 CEO blog would be a strong communications tool to all stake holders and would show a personality/person behind b5. Lastly a startup blog would be interesting to see ( although probably a larger time investment) considering toronto’s startup community I’m sure a lot of knowledge can be collected.
So what does all this mean…. I enjoy you’re writing style but you should look at what reason you want to blog and if you split up into various topics whether you’ll have the time to create content for all of them.
I hope this helps Jeremy!
about 2 years ago
Just glad to see you blogging man. :)
Patrick
about 2 years ago
I would like to see more of ensight. I don’t know about your other followers but I personally prefer to read variety of topics in one place (just like reading a newspaper or watching the news), the visitors could choose from the category anyway.
travelhqr.com
about 2 years ago
I would like to see more of ensight. I don’t know about your other followers but I personally prefer to read variety of topics in one place (just like reading a newspaper or watching the news), the visitors could choose from the category anyway.
http://www.travelhqr.com
about 2 years ago
With your combination of limited time and ambitious plans for writing I would think that keeping it as simple as possible would be the best way to start out for you Jeremy. Don’t do multiple blogs, just use this one.
about 2 years ago
I’m in the middle of figuring out this whole thing for myself as well… I say go with what YOU feel works best for you.
I’m breaking out some of my content into another blog shortly… I figure it’s better for me to keep things organized that way.
But you? I’ll read what you post either way!! Looking forward to talking you on TechMoms Talk on Tuesday!! :)
about 2 years ago
Dear Jeremy Wright;
Hello,
I’m a staff reporter of Seoul Daily, Korea and sending an e-mail to ask an interview.
I prepare a feature story on the Blog and news site which is making profits or has fame.
The title of our feature series is “Searing for the new growth power of the Blog and newspaper.” which is funded by Korea Press Foundation.(http://www.kpf.or.kr).
I have heard your fame as a Blogger Evangelist.
The Seoul Daily in which I’m working for is the oldest, 105 years old newspaper in Korea and one of top 10 national daily.
Now I’m working at the online news department and try to find out how to overcome the crisis of old-fashioned newspaper.
I will go to the United States at the end of June or beginning of July.
I would like to visit your office and listen to your success story.
Please give me your reply to geo@seoul.co.kr
Changsoo Yun
Online news department
The Seoul Daily News (www.seoul.co.kr)
Tel: 82-2-2000-9828
Fax: 82-2-2000-9819
Cell: 82-11-9768-1241
about 2 years ago
Its hard to blog with tons of good social networks out there. But still blogging takes its place.
about 2 years ago
I would keep it as a personal blog without splitting off anything.
about 2 years ago
You should keep it as it is. You can always try your new idea on a new blog?
about 2 years ago
It is a tough decision that’s for sure. I usually find I have a similar problem with one variation, so many topics I want to write about, so much information I want to share but like yourself no time to do everything all at the same time and why don’t they put some more hours in the day so we have time enough for all the blogging we want to do!!! I am sure you will make the right choice, perhaps personal and business separated? Good luck in the decision making process and go Canada!
about 2 years ago
Well now! That’s awfully flattering :)
I’d say keep a single blog for SEO/Google Juice/Ease of Finding You perspectives. Split the blog into categories around those topic areas, and then have landing pages at each category that feel like separate areas. You can publish a single RSS fed for the whole thing or separate ones for each category (and sub-categories). You could even register a new domain for each one if you wanted (though you’d lose the Google Juice).
about 2 years ago
mmm … I like the idea of having separated RSS feeds, never thought about that; point being; my clients are in 2 very different categories; seo-companies or total newbies, so it would indeed help to have separated categories and RSS feeds for them!
thanks for the tip :)