My Blogging and Social Media Journey
Like many introverted IT people, I’m not overly social or public with the work I do. I’ve survived so far, but with the changes and further work I want to do I have to start getting more public. It’s also a requirement for the University unit’s I’m doing, so let’s spin that as two birds one stone!
What I’m starting with
I’m not starting with much, a modest LinkedIn Profile, a sparse Twitter Account, an empty GitHub Account and this website so I guess the only way is up right? Lets break down the actual engagement stats on these sites so we can see just how bad my starting point really is.
- LinkedIn - 180 Connections - 17 views over 90 days
- Twitter - 25 Followers - 2 Tweets in 30 days - 260 Impressions
- GitHub - Empty
- Website - 16 Users in 30 Days
Ouch! My reasons for this post and mentioning my starting point is I like to measure growth and I like data so I will be revisiting this position every few months to see how things are trending.
University - My Kickstarter
At 37 with two kids and over 20 years of IT experience, I decided going back to University to finish restart my Bachelor of IT would be a wonderfull idea. So far the experience has been pretty good, mainly because I have had the luxury of taking subjects that relate to fields I never really had to know too much about in a work context. I’ve chosen a number of more creative electives and one of my current units is entitled Gamified Media, which looks at applying features normally assoiated with games to non-gaming contexts. This unit, being within the Digital Media stream, has a very social component to it which has been the catalyst and driver for me to finally start putting myself out there.
Where I’m headed
I know what I like to do and I know fairly well what I’m good at, and I’m pretty lucky in that there is a lot of overlap between those two things. I know generally what I want to be doing over the next few years, both professionally and personally / creatively, and this blog will hopefully scratch that itch and provide value to people. So my focus with this blog will be two fold, firstly it will be exploring practical solution architecture, and how I think systems should be built and operationalised, as well as all the other missles that fly around that area. The second focus will be essentially about prototyping and prototypes with technology I want to explore.
What next
Next steps for me are:
- Habit forming posting schedule, both on here and on Twitter / LinkedIn
- Exploring both professional topics and university based topics (these will overlap)
- Start engaging more
If you have started a similar journey, looking to start or are already well established on your path I would like to hear from you! Leave a comment below.
