Great Circle

Huh? What war? We’re at war? Who’s at war?

Wait a minute here… You say you’ve won the war on blogging, yet your Technorati rank is only 68,000ish, your authority is 68, your RSS subscriber numbers are not quite worth publishing, you don’t even post every day, and your Google AdSense income to date is $0! How has LOGICal eMOTIONs won the war?!

Well, I never said I was fighting YOUR war…

Oh, but you’re not fighting a war with your blog? Well, what if we have a look at a few things that make up a war, and see how they fit in terms of blogging.

War: an active struggle between competing entities The competing entities - oh how we love them so. Competition for our time, our thoughts, our feelings, and the list goes on. Every day there is a competition over whether we blog today or not, and sure, many have made the comittment that they will post every single day without question. Great - is every day a breeze? Anything ever compete for your time? Absolutely! Heck, things compete for our time when we need to do necessary things like, well, laundry.

The ’struggle between competing entities’ is constantly changing in our lives. The entities that are competing right now to read (or not read) this post, likely won’t be the same two entities in struggle a year from now, a month from now, or even next hour.

Anyone who has ever run a blog, has at some point, struggled with getting a post published, and the reason was because there were simply competing entities - war. We can all likely look at the score card so far to see when posting has won, and where something other than posting has won.

Battle: (struggle) an energetic attempt to achieve something What are we trying to achieve with our blogs? Are you passionate about it?
Have you ever written a post that you were not passionate about? If you did, you’re better off just to go delete it now from your blog and consider it a lesson learned. For LOGICal eMOTIONs it is a continual battle to make sure that the posts that are published are in line with that which I am trying to achieve, and that on a core level there is a passion or energy that is stirred within.

Ok, sounds rather odd (writes rather odd too), however, to post anything on a blog that is not in line with that which you are trying to achieve, is to do your blog, yourself, and your readership a great disservice.

Battles are not a bad thing, and if it could be achieved easily, you would have already.

Weapon: a means of persuading or arguing So what’s your preferred weapon? Oh come on now, you know you have a preferred method of persuasion - should we ask our fellow bloggers and see what they say? For me, I tend to wield logic as a first strike, but will sometimes wrap it in humor first if it looks like it’s going to do some damage upon impact… My issue, I know… With a blog title of LOGICal eMOTIONs, I’m not sure how logic couldn’t be a major component in my arsenal, and I’m ok with that.

Each one of us has a ‘means of persuading’ which we do naturally and instinctually. Our entire blogs are attempts at persuading our readers to our own point of view. If you were to look at the top 5 or 10 blogs that you read regularly, do they not each use a unique weapon that is a means of persuading or arguing with you as you read? Of course they do - and so do you!

Some use logic, humor, conversation, or even story telling as means of persuading or arguing.

Where we run into challenges with our weapons is when we try to use something else that we are less than proficient at. Think of martial arts masters who will begin training with a certain weapon and not change to a different one until the current one is mastered. Slowly over time our arsenal and skill with each weapon increases which allows us to be more effective with our views and ideas.

Tactics: specific techniques or actions developed by the stakeholders used to achieve a planned strategy I do believe that most blogs have at least a basic strategy, and the ones that for whatever reason do not, end up going back to where they came from - the great abyss. The great thing is that the ones that do have a strategy for the existence and growth of their blog, use different techniques and actions to achieve this PLANNED strategy. LOGICal eMOTIONs and I have a very specific strategy that we’re working with, and I can pretty much assure you that nobody else is using the same tactics. (The changes to the template, and tag lines have not been random acts by any means! A small tactic, but a decidedly strategic one..)

The key is establishing the planned strategy, and then identifying the ways to accomplish it. When it comes to tactics, the understanding of the struggle, the energy behind it, and the weapons used all come into play and influence our tactics every moment of our blogs existence. Our knowledge and understanding of each of these areas (and of ‘victory’ which is coming up next) will determine the tactics we use. We all believe in doing certain things to help our blog, and believe in not doing other things.

Victory: success in a struggle against an enemy, opponent, or obstacle Success in a struggle - is there anything more uplifting at a core level?

When we use our weapons effectively, with the correct tactics, applied in battle, in the war that we have chosen to fight, it becomes nearly impossible to not have victory.

Victory for each blog is different and as well it should be. For LE (Logical Emotions), one of the biggest victories is that of having survived the first year. Although it may not seem like much of a victory to many who read this, yet for me, it is one of the biggest ones. LE has been through a few changes over the year, we’ve learned a lot, we’ve used our weapons effectively in battle, and the tactics determined early on have served us well.

Technorati rankings, nor AdSense is a victory to LE. Technorati rankings is not my war, and it likely never will be simply because I do not place much stock in it. AdSense, although is great for some blogs, will also never be part of the war because I firmly believe that the content (posts and comments) of the blog is the opportunity, and not the blog itself.

RSS subscribers on the other hand are immediate victories for every blog. If you have but one subscriber, you have touched the life of someone in some capacity. You will likely never know how, yet the fact that there is one other person reading what you believe to be true, who appreciates the war you are fighting (even though they will likely never know what it is about), can see the battle unfold, recognizes the weapons you use, the tactics you employ, also get to share in the victory. When we have other people who are with you even after all that, can you honestly surrender and take a victory away from someone?

There isn’t one war we fight with our blogs, which also means that there is not one victory either!

For LE and I, we’ve already won the war on blogging, and we’re having a blast!

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William Tully is indeed the author of Logical Emotions. I recommend a tour of his posts tagged Wordless Wednesdays (if you don’t have your breath taken away by at least one of these photos, I question whether you’re actually alive! :)), and sampling the post Engineered Meanings.

Glad you won this war, Tully!