It started with a meeting with the Hotmail (er, Windows Live Mail) team this morning. At one point I was chatting with Omar Shahine. Really we were comparing various teams and how they approached both internal employees and external customers. He noted that teams that didn’t answer emails, that didn’t show off their product either internally or externally, and didn’t blog often demonstrate to him that they don’t love their products.
Oh, that just fired me up. That totally explains why I was growing increasingly uneasy with all the sucking up to the A list that has been going on lately. At the Search Engine Strategies conference I heard lots of linking strategies. The SEO’s are coming into blogging just to get onto Google. That’s cool, they discovered part of what makes blogging powerful.
But they are totally missing the other part: that blogging lets you share what you love (and find other people who love what you do). I used the example of a kite lover. If you can find five other kite lovers in your town, isn’t that enough? Why do you need more traffic?
Me, I’m getting sick of the whole traffic game (and, yes, I’m to blame cause I keep writing about it). What makes me happiest? When a geek shows me his or her product.
In the past few hours I’ve seen some remarkable stuff. More in a few.
But, the day ended up today really great. My son is getting great grades and got a good report from his teachers. But even funnier when I picked him up he told me he has a troll on his blog. “Hey, dad, your geek friends are sometimes mean.” I love how he handles the trolls. I wish I could handle my trolls the way he does. Something about being a 12-year-old and getting picked on that gives him the power to tell the supposed adults to get lost.
Anyway, Shel Israel and I gave the closing keynote at the New Communications Forum. Shel Holtz wrote it up and there’s more on Memeorandum. It was a fantastic conversation.
I’m happy to figure out my passions again. I love my son, his insights on life are profound. We gotta do a podcast again.