I’m a thief. Not in the Robin Hood philanthropic way, but in the robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of way. Let me explain. I recently started a blog about my puppy just for the fun of it. Unlike my other blogging endeavors, I have no real goal or agenda. I simply want to chronicle the experience of raising my first Shiba Inu.
Other dog owners have been stumbling across my work and writing me with their stories. In turn, I’ve begun very lengthy e-mail exchanges with other Shiba owners. We laugh about the breed’s inherent traits that drive us batty. We swap stories on how to train the stubborn pups. Overall, I think the e-mail trails are fun to read; valuable to any dog owner.
But that’s the problem. To put it bluntly, I’ve been blowing my blog load behind closed doors – sharing my thoughts with a single person rather than the world. These are conversations that should be taking place on my blog…especially since they are being generated by the blog.
I realize this observation is not groundbreaking. You’re already aware that content is all around us. Today’s conversation spawns tomorrow’s post. However, it couldn’t hurt to take a few minutes today and evaluate your inbox. Go back and look at your e-mail communications with friends, colleagues and readers. I’m willing to bet you’ll find a few ‘lost’ blog posts. Perhaps you’ll even be able to take a few and tweak them for publishing. The inbox that you dip in and out of everyday is really a lost & found for ideas.
Let us know what you turn up!