A friend of mine writes a blog on his area of expertise. He writes a lot, and is (perhaps) better than I am in SEO and SMO practices. In fact, he’s making a pretty solid living simply through his sites, blogs, and activities. Another friend writes a blog that’s specific to his/her industry, and most likely full of valuable industry knowledge based upon years of experience.
My problem: both blogs are (to me) dull as dishwater to read. There is little in either blog that really compels me to read further, and I often find myself walking away with more questions than answers. This got me to thinking, how do we police ourselves? How do we provide that necessary filter to keep our own ego from allowing us to publish substandard content?
The Internet, in all it’s free-ness, allows everyone to belly up to the buffet and gorge on just about anything. And, like in life, there’s no accounting for taste. Unfortunately, the velvet rope that kept the plain janes out of 54 doesn’t exist online. And so, self-proclaimed experts, burgeoning novelists, and Nigerian princes are clamoring for approval on your MacBook.
In days of old, publishers and record labels had the ultimate control — but they also had tremendous responsibility. If your book sucked, they could stop you from releasing it to the masses. Record labels could restrict artistic output so that the undercooked musical souffles had time to rise before the public devoured them.
Admittedly, along the way, greed got intermingled with this responsibility and profits were the substitute for quality. But if you can apply the gatekeeper philosophy to what’s out there today, so many of the distractions that exist would simply evaporate. The white noise would diminish, and talent would emerge.
So as you venture forth with your writing/music/startup, ask yourself … is it any good? Do I want to inflict this upon the public? Am I doing this for the sake of the art, or just to make a buck?
Answer honestly – our (limited) attention spans depend upon it …
