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Are You Blogging for as Many or as Much?

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This guest post was contributed by friend and SOB, Jon Swanson. He often emails me about my writing. I find his observations incredibly valuable, thoughtful, and dear. –ME “Liz” Strauss

As many or as much?

by Jon Swanson

I’ve been blogging for a couple years. I read the wonderful writings of Liz and Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse who all talk specifically about blogging, about success in community. I have considered how to build my reach, how to monetize, how to do all of those things that make a blog successful.

And then I am forced to think deeply about this: as many … or as much?

In my life I often wrestle with whether to help as many people as possible or to help people as much as possible. I understand that there is a falseness in this forced choice, but humor me briefly.

I see needs. It’s one of the things that is part of who I am. I can hear hurt. I can see chaos. I can feel anxiety. And I like to help. Sometimes, I like to help as many people as possible, to spread information or money or ideas widely. But even as I am talking with or working with a large group, I see that one person at the edge of the group, the one being ignored by everyone. And I want to go to that person, to talk with them, to listen.

And now do you see the dilemma? In a fixed amount of time you can talk with a large group or you can listen to an individual, but you cannot do both.

I love cross-links as much as the next person. I love reach. But when I hear pain in someone’s ‘voice’, I have this desire to send them an email or a text or a DM. And that takes heart cycles that then can’t be spent elsewhere.

I know that it is possible to have different levels of relationship with different people. I know that many people are very caring. But I know that in order for me to be most effective as a person who blogs as part of my involvement in lives, I have to put more of my life into ‘as much’ than I do into ‘as many’.

As a result, I feel a deep connection with a fairly small group of people online. Other people read my posts and comment occasionally, but my desire is to make sure that I am adding as much value as I possibly can to that group of people.

As we wrestle with our blogging, trying to figure out our purpose, our unique voice, our distinctive value to the people of the blogosphere, some of us will be very effective with ‘as many’. It is important to get the information that you have, the perspectives that you shape and share, to as many people as possible.

At the same time there are others of us who will be working on the ‘as much’.

It is possible to be very successful in both of these worlds. However, at some point feel the freedom from being measured by the expectations of the world that isn’t yours.

–Jon Swanson, You can find Jon at the Levite Chronicles

Is the world of “many” or the world of “much” where your blog makes the most difference?
— Liz
Work with Liz!!

Related
Change the World: Shaping the World in Little Ways, a guest post by Jon Swanson

Change the World: Venture Up the Words

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Hey, Joanna, How Can We Change the World?

changetheworld8

This morning I was greeted by an email from a dear friend, Joanna Young. I am often encouraged by her words as I start my day. This email said, “it felt like the thing I needed to write. You know how that can be.”

Yeah. I do. We know I do.

I knew before I opened it that what Joanna wrote would move me. Anyone who reads her blog would know that. So, without another word of my own, I share it now with you.

Finding the Courage to Write

Guest Writer: Joanna Young

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the feeling that something is calling to you, blinking at you, trying to get your attention. “You need to do this”, it says. “You need to write this”, it tells you.

Liz’s change the world series is one of those quietly persistent flashes of light. It blinks at me: here I am, still waiting, patiently.

Sometimes it asks me, quietly: what are you waiting for?

Because the words, the idea, the possibility of writing something that’s about realizing the power of our own words to help change the world — well, that’s right up my street. It’s what I believe. Truly, deeply: that the words we use can help shape our reality, create the kind of world that we want to live in.

So what is it, the question goes, what is it, then, that you are waiting for?

And sometimes when I see another post go up, another beautiful button with a picture of this world we hold so dear, the simplicity of the message, the persistent reminder of those words, change the world! and the gentle, quiet reminder at the end: we can change the world, just like that! Sometimes when I see that button I get a jolt of anxiety that someone other than me will write the words I’m trying to find, that I’ll be too late, will have lost, or wasted the opportunity.

And so, the question persists, quietly: what is it, then, that you are waiting for?

And there are those times when I read other people’s words here , so simple, so powerful, such a compelling reminder, that yes, our words can and do make a difference that I’m jumping up and down in front of my computer, muttering yes, yes, yes! to my startled, sleepy, cat.

Words like the recent contribution from Jon Swanson, words that took my breath away with their power and simplicity, the conviction of this simple message:

Here’s the point. To talk about deciding to change the world ignores the fact that we already are. Our existence, our interactions, our writing, our time, our love, our hate –all of these things are shaping the world in small ways. The question is not whether you are ready to change your world. The question is whether you like the way you are already changing it. And whether you are willing to be part of helping other people change the world. too.

Our choices, our actions, our words, our decisions to write, or not to write: they all count. They’re all part of this bigger picture, one post at a time.

I know this. And yet: what is that you are waiting for?

And I realized. It’s not the words. It’s not the skill with the words, playing with phrases, finding just the right pattern and rhythm. Because I can do that. It’s not hard for me.

But writing this, answering this question, this quiet persistent question is hard. It’s hard because alongside the quiet, persistent question runs another line of insistent chatter. Who do you think you are, writing for a readership like that? Who do you think you are, offering up your paltry words to someone who knows so much, has written so much? Who do you think you are, offering up such small words to such a big task: change the world!

And so I realized. It wasn’t the words I was waiting for. It was the courage.

The courage to say: this is the best I can do. These are my words “they’re all I’ve got. I can’t think of anything smarter, wittier, cleverer, more appropriate to say. I’m sorry” It’s not enough.

And then I wondered: perhaps if this is how I feel, well maybe there are other people out there who feel the same. Perhaps if I venture up these words, however inadequate to the task, who knows, somewhere, some day, perhaps these words will resonate. Connect. Help to make a difference.

Help us to answer this gentle, persistent question.

What is that you’re waiting for?

—Joanna Young.
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Thanks, Joanna, for being a light, being a voice, and being there to help us see what to do.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Shaping the World in Little Ways

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Hey, Jon, How Can We Change the World?

changetheworld8

Jon Swanson and I met not long ago. It was shortly after I had started reading his blog. We haven’t talked on the phone. We’ve merely passed messages like two kids in school. Still I think that because we share a certain mutual friend and because I’ve read what he wrote I know him some what.

I wasn’t surprised when an email with Jon’s post for the Change the World series. I share it now with you.

Shaping the World in Little Ways

Guest Writer: Jon Swanson

People tell me all the time that they want to make their lives matter, that they want to do something significant, that they want to change the world.

All the time? Isn’t that an exaggeration?

Not really. I’m a dad and a husband and a friend and a pastor and a listener. Most of my conversations somehow involve people who aren’t happy with something about their situation, or something about their life or something about their job or something about the furniture or …..

But you said that people were wanting to change the world. You are talking about complaining, aren’t you?

Not really. I have this funny notion that people are connected to each other, that what happens to one person can change someone else.

Yeah, that’s the “butterfly wing” effect, right? A small action somewhere changes something in the other part of the universe. That’s so cliche.

I know. It’s silly. Of course, if I started describing the yellow swallowtail I see in the backyard right now, while sitting in the old rocking chair that my grandfather sat in, and Susan Reynolds thought about it and decided to paint that butterfly, and then put the cards on her website, where Becky McCray ordered some to send a thank you to Jim Long for painting pictures with his words and images, which made Jim particularly motivated in his camera work so that he shot a visual meditation on yellow swallowtails which was edited into the closing credits sequence at the end of the network news someday so that 2-3 million people watching were less cranky about the world when they sat down for supper and encouraged their kids instead of scolding them so that they did well on their tests the next day and school performance, just for a day, improved–would that be cliche?

Well yes. But it would be a good way to show some link love. And what the world needs now is love, link love.

That’s pretty cliche, too.

I know.

Here’s the point. To talk about deciding to change the world ignores the fact that we already are. Our existence, our interactions, our writing, our time, our love, our hate–all of these things are shaping the world in small ways. The question is not whether you are ready to change your world. The question is whether you like the way you are already changing it. And whether you are willing to be part of helping other people change the world. too.

Even if the action is as simple as writing a post.

Like this.

—Jon Swanson
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Thanks, Jon, for showing us how we are changing the world in the “ittle ways” that count.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss