Do other Geneabloggers have a mission statement for their blogs?
At the blogging workshop at Mosman Library last week Steven Lewis spoke about the importance of thinking about one's purpose and audience before setting up a blog. This planning could include the writing of a mission statement that could be used as an evaluative tool to keep one on track. What a wakeup call this was!
When I had taught writing I always stressed to students the importance of audience and purpose but when I thought about this blog I realised that, as Stephen had suggested, I had identified a niche that no-one else seemed to be blogging about but I hadn't thought much about a potential audience.
I'm really not too worried about an audience as I am not writing this blog for commercial gain. If anyone found my snippets interesting/worthwhile then that is a bonus. The power of positive reinforcement from readers does provide a great stimulus to keep posting.
My purpose was to create a place where I could share news of resources of relevance to Australian Genealogists, post information about Web 2.0 tools that may be applied to genealogy, have a forum to contribute to Genealogy Carnivals, post short opinion pieces, share my research, help to raise the profile of genealogy in and about Australia and to give Geniaus an online presence. My intention, as an amateur genealogist, is not to write lengthy, scholarly articles but to deliver short and sweet posts.
Having written about my purpose I feel that I now have some sort of mission or set of guidelines for my continuing efforts with this blog. My mission is found!
I described my intentions for my blog in the first post, if you would call that a mission statement. The trouble was I quickly found that I wasn't writing quite what I had intended to write! Mainly because I didn't have quite the material I thought I did, which was a useful lesson for me.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is one of the first I ever subscribed to! I probably read some of the 'big name' blogs as well but honestly can't remember which. Yours made more of an impact on me with the combination of posts on Web 2.0 and on Australian resources.
I'm glad you feel you have a purpose now!