Hoosiers Ate My Brain

What's Up with Me These Days

If you know me, you know I'm *so* not about guilt. If I don't want to do something, I don't. I just hate obligation. I like to work, eat, sleep, write, and well, anything else, with full commitment. Unfortunately, guilt kicks in when it's something I want to do but just have sucked at lately. So, what's been going on with the blog?

I'll be honest. For me, since June, blogging -- or not blogging -- has been a result of both discipline and focus issues. For those of you who don't know me, I left a senior level corporate job after 10 years to start my own business. If anyone had told me at the beginning of the year that by Oct 3, I'd be up to my neck in a start-up, I would have said they were crazy. (I would have believed a prediction of marriage and children more willingly.) But, well, sometimes the stars align and things just work. Between a great idea, a solid planning process, lots of help from talented experts and friends, two fantastic business partners, available capital, and a readiness to be passionate about work again, our new little company has come together. Our first client is signed, two more should be right behind, and our first projects will be completed by the end of the year.

One would think that working at home -- and all the time -- would have made blogging easier but here's where we get to discipline and focus. One reason I started blogging this year was that while on a two-week London/NY trip over Christmas by myself, I really started thinking about what was next for me. I didn't set any particular goals, but I let myself start thinking that this was the year I might make some changes. One step towards a new direction was devoting more time and discipline to writing.

If you blog, you know it's hard. It's time consuming and tough to produce something you feel is worth sharing every day -- or every few days. It also takes the tiniest bit of focus away from other projects. It's tough to have your work filling 100% of your head while 5% of your mind is thinking about what you're going to blog about or fleshing an insightful thought into a post. I haven't applied the discipline to blogging because of the focus I might lose.

For those who've started a business or, as I do increasingly, consider themselves entrepreneurs, you know how important focus is. To be successful in a new venture 100% of your brain needs to be working on it -- and that 5% that might be thinking about blogging is really thinking about new strategic partners or exit strategies. So, what does that mean for this blog?

Well, I'm not ready to give it up. I have another thought or two on how to keep writing -- which is critically important -- and posting. As we've been researching and building web sites and business systems, one thing has been driven home to me again and again. The web is personal, or it should be. Web sites need to be personal and make customers feel like they're in direct contact with the company. Clients need to feel that pages are reaching out directly to them. When we look at ways to accomplish the personal touch, of course, it means daily updates, industry news, and naturally, blogging. The trick is changing the focus to make this personal touch so integral to your day-to-day operations that you make the time to communicate directly with your client base -- and potential client bases. So, with some new tools in place for remote server sharing among us partners, I'm slowing trying to integrate my daily new summaries, industry updates, and random thoughts into our company blog and active web spaces. I'm sure, there will always be personal thoughts and notes for Hoosiers Ate My Brain, so I will continue to post as they come. And I anticipate that they'll come fairly often. So, at the end of the day, after this long, personal, probably very boring post, I only hope that my readers just keep the faith. I'm not going anywhere -- so stay tuned.

posted by braingirl @ 1:58 PM