(Note: I'm going to put links to my own posts here, not to be blatantly self-promotional, but to illustrate points I'm talking about, since the topic of this discussion is blogging. Feel free to ignore the links).

I've been blogging more than ever lately, and - FWIW - here are my observations:

1. Time is my biggest "problem" vis-a-vis blogging. Given everything else I could be doing with that time, it's sometimes hard to prioritize writing a blog post over writing code, or any number of other things.

2. There's not a lot that I want to write about, but feel constrained from writing about. We haven't had a lot of internal co-founder drama or turmoil, or any inter-personal scandals, or especially bad relationships with investors, customers, media, etc. so there isn't a whole lot that I have to restrict myself from talking about from the "avoid upsetting people" point-of-view.

3. That said, I do sometimes write a post[1] that challenges something somebody else said, or is a bit argumentative or controversial. A good recent example was when I read a WRAL Techwire post by Joe Procopio, took it one way, and sat down to write up a testy response. But then I emailed Joe to say "Hey man, I read your article, and I'm thinking about posting this in response, do you have any comment first"? He replied, clarified some points, sent some links to other works, etc., and I rewrote a big chunk of the post. The spirit of the post remained the same, but it became less of a specific response to his article, and more of a general observation / commentary. So no hurt feelings or conflict needed.

4. The blog is marketing. Blog posts are a way to drive traffic to our site, gain search engine positioning, achieve TOMA, establish credibility, etc.

5. I feel that I need to stop writing about "startup stuff" so much, because writing about startups isn't doing anything to drive revenue for us. It's time for us to focus on blogging stuff that will attract our customers to our site, by writing about: the industries we are targeting, the executives we want to attract attention from, the kinds of problems we are working on solving, etc. The blog is content marketing, and people who want to read about startup drama just aren't our customers. People running plants making nonwoven technical textiles, or furniture, or farm tractors, etc., are customers. Ergo, we need to write about the nonwoven technical textiles industry, the furniture industry, or the farm tractor industry, OR something that will be relevant to people in those industries. So, for example, if we want to get our message to CIOs, CTOs, IT Directors, etc. we write posts like this[2] and this[3].

6. The blog is a form of "market education". So it's important for us to blog things that educate the market in a way that helps align them with what we're trying to do. We are working on incorporating a specific methodology into how we engage with customers, so we write blog posts that explain it and advocate for it.[4][5][6]

7. I'm not a big fan of "newsjacking" per-se, but if there's a topic that is "in the news" AND I happen to actually have a strong opinion on the topic, I like to write about it[7][8]. It's usually good for getting traffic and sometimes it leads to an interesting discussion. And, per The Cluetrain Manifesto - "markets are conversations".

8. Sometimes it's cool to just have fun and post something kinda random or seemingly silly.[9]

9. I wouldn't have a problem blogging about some aspects of our strategy, and we do strive for a high level of transparency. Heck, we're an Open Source company, so we have to be transparent to a certain point, by definition. But there will always be some secret sauce that we don't go around telling everybody. And that's fine. Nobody says you have to blog everything.

[1]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-point-of-startup-is-...

[2]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/10-essential-reads-for-c...

[3]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/essential-reading-for-it...

[4]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-capability-cases-are...

[5]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-what-is-capability-ca...

[6]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/capability-cases-part-th...

[7]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/03/post-good-google-who-wil...

[8]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-kiera-wilmot-situati...

[9]: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/prolog-im-going-to-learn...