Ian is blogging..

Ian is blogging..

Ian and I have been travelling in the same digital gov/Twitter/blog/unconference circles for many years - though mainly it has been about disagreeing on what constitutes the West Country (he basically thinks Bristol is oop north, and I think Plymouth is basically France) and agreeing that going to London is a necessary evil at best.

What is your blogs URL?
https://ames.world

When did you first start blogging? Do you remember your first post? Is it still online?

2013 my first post is here https://skipster2k2.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/ok-here-goes/

What platform did you start with?

WordPress

What do you use now?

A hodgepodge of Hugo/GitHub/netlify

Do you remember the first blog/blogger you regularly followed?

I think it was Rob England, the IT skeptic, he was on a similar journey from ITIL to DevOps as me: http://www.itskeptic.org/blog.html

What is the biggest benefit you get from the practice of blogging?

Coalescing my thoughts and getting others views on interesting topics

Do you have a writing routine for your blogging?

No, I occasionally get together with Neil Vass and Mark Dalgarno to blog together but it's mainly #excuse-club we have a habit of posting the latest excuse in the slack channel description! I used to weeknote but have stopped since freelancing, I keep thinking about starting again but find it hard to do between different contracts (that's 90% excuse though)

What advice would you give somebody who is thinking about starting blogging?

I've always found it really useful to pull together a jumble of thoughts, the process of blogging is more useful than the output sometimes. The feedback and different viewpoints you get from publishing are worth embracing the fear for.