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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!!