why I am a blogger

I'm off to the Simmons Leadership Conference tomorrow, and I'm excited to meet some of the faculty in the Simmons MBA program, which hosts this annual conference. I'm particularly hoping that new faculty member Jill Avery will be around, since her teaching and research interests sound eerily similar to mine.

But before diving into bed to get some decent sleep before my 4:30 am wake-up call and 2-hour drive to Boston, I wanted to take a quick stab at answering Chris Brogan's questions about my first steps in social media.

What were your first steps into social media?

Who were your early people you admired and followed?

How did you get started?

I started blogging in 2003, because I was working exclusively from home as a freelance book editor and had limited if any human contact on a daily basis.

I was lonely and desperately craved interaction.

I was reading the blogs of a few excellent people I had known in grad school, and those blogs led me to other blogs, and eventually I was reading and complaining to myself that those bloggers just weren't posting nearly often enough, and I found myself writing long responses to their posts in the comments and one day somebody said why don't you write your own posts and stop writing novels in my comments and I said OK.

Then one or two people found MY blog, and they started commenting, and became loyal readers, and this encouraged me tremendously. I kept writing, and reading, and commenting, and my circle grew ever wider.

I stopped editing books, and started helping others -- especially artists and cultural organizations -- learn how to get involved online, through blogs and social networks and other online forums. It's work that I find more rewarding every single day. It's a little embarrassing, almost, how much I love what I do.

I'm going to have to put off responding to the last two questions for tomorrow, after the conference, if I have any juice left, or Sunday, if I don't.

Here are the questions:

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?

What will you do in the next few months with social media?

Of course I answer that question frequently on this blog, as that's really the main question I am concerned with, how the beginner can get started, depending on their goals, needs, objectives, personality, time, skills, hair color, etc.

But what will I do in the next few months with social media?

THAT is a very interesting question indeed.