Teochew Thunder: Year One (Part 2/2)

OK, so what goes into the blogging process? I think it would be clearer if I first started with aims.

On target?

My Aims

Simplicity. I want this to be a tech blog, but I want it to be a tech blog that can act as a bridge between the layperson and the techie. Therefore, I'm not going to spew long complicated jargon-y words just to sound clever. I may not always succeed in this, though.

Friendliness. No hostility. OK, not much, at any rate. This isn't one of those personal blogs where the blogger constantly goes off on a long rant on what's wrong with the people around him and how misunderstood he is. I want to keep things light-hearted. That doesn't always work, however. Some topics just aren't light.

Neutrality. Some topics are divisive. That's fine and dandy. But I generally try to avoid taking sides, not because I'm too much of a pussy to take a stand, but because I think being extreme helps no one. You pick a side, and you automatically develop a blind spot. And blind spots are bad for techies. Blog content suffers for it. But instead of taking neither side, I prefer to take both sides.

Constant quantity. A consistent stream of content. Something dependable. I'm actively avoiding cases of dropping out of sight one month, and posting like mad next month. If you take a look, you may notice that with the exception of October 2014 when this blog started, every month from there on there have been 5 to 7 blog posts. This is not a coincidence. I like to pace things.

Variety. Sometimes I rant, sometimes I get technical, sometimes I get instructional. Sometimes I talk about front-end, or back-end, or the database. Sometimes I talk about the business end of things. But there will not be a month where I do any one of these to the exclusion of all else. There's got to be a healthy mix of everything.

Point, A, Point B.

The process behind a TeochewThunder blogpost

Conceptualization. It may be on a bus ride, or during a few laps in the pool, or over lunch. Or perhaps the ol' lightbulb will spark to life while browsing in the library. Or during a conversation with a fellow techie. Ideas for blogpost topics pop up ever so often. Taxi Turmoil, for example, was brought to life during a conversation with an ex-classmate turned taxi driver. The Bowline Bend Analogy was written after an IT Consultant gave me some feedback on my blog. The various Spot The Bug posts were penned sporadically as I made mistakes while coding, and decided to document them for posterity.

Research. This may take the form of interviews, online searches, library haunting, all in the name of getting the information I need; and ensuring that my facts are credible, if not rock-solid.

Content. Then comes the actual writing, and the insertion of codes, screenshots and stock photos as illustrations. I don't have that much faith in my writing that I wouldn't resort to visual aids.

Final touch. As mentioned earlier, I generally try to keep things light-hearted. That usually manifests itself in a pun at the end of the blogpost. Generally that works well, but in some instances have backfired. In the case of The Tragic Case of Izabel Laxamana, I had ended the blogpost with a pun only to be informed by my test audience (yes I have those, doesn't everyone?) that it was flippant and disrespectful to the subject of my blogpost. I agreed, and changed it.

Rewording. Sometimes I get carried away, and write a bit more than I should. Sometimes I get a bit too harsh, and use way more profanity than is needed. When I finish a draft, it rarely gets published right away unless it's breaking news. No, I go over it with a critical eye first. (Is it too long? Did I belabor some points? If so then it's time for a bit of truncation, or in certain cases, to split the blogpost into multiple parts. Of Gratitude and Loyalty is one such example, as are some of the web tutorials. Perhaps I came on a bit too strongly in certain areas? Sounded a bit too defensive? Time to tone it down. Does my choice of words - usually swear words - detract from the essence of the blogpost? Clean it up.) It could take months before the draft is published. One of the advantages of posting it on the Internet over saying stuff out loud, is that you get plenty of time to choose your words wisely. I wouldn't want to come back to my blog archive to find that I had droned on endlessly like some self-important mofo over one point, or emoted like some angsty teenager over another. Not that I have anything against bloggers who do those - I'd just prefer to keep this to a minimum here.

Those trends...

Demographics

You know who reads TeochewThunder, you know what goes into TeochewThunder, now the burning question: who reads what?

The most popular blogposts tend to be those dealing with local events, such as Web Tutorial: LKY's Memorial and The Great Widget Falsification.

Following a distant second are rants, such as Of Gratitude and Loyalty. Even this is context-based; Part 2 appears to be way more popular than Part 1, probably because Part 2 criticizes employers while Part 1 criticizes employees.

Of moderate success are the web tutorials, and I'm glad for that because I worked pretty damn hard on those. Reviews, on the other hand, seem to enjoy less success.

Technical snippets are the least popular, but they're important. To me.

Finally...

That's it for the year-end report. For a virgin effort, I think it went pretty well. Here's looking forward to another productive blogging year.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll keep you posted.
T___T