The Blogroll Dilemma
July 31st, 2009 | 5 Comments
When I contemplated starting this blog I was immediately confronted with a king size dilemma. It wasn’t what to write about or how the blog should look or what it should be called. Those were relatively easy decisions. My big dilemma, one that I have not entirely solved, involved this blogroll, or at least the version of it that should end up on this blog.
For those of you who haven’t taken a look at it lately, the OBS blogroll is huge. It now numbers somewhere in the neighborhood of 210 blogs, and I’m proud to have each and every one of them on that blogroll. I’m also aware that a lot of people on that blogroll feel a connection to me because I lead an organization that they support. So, when I started putting together my personal blog, one question that confronted me was this, how does that blogroll there connect to the blogroll here?
For a while I thought about just transferring the whole thing over. That seemed the simplest way, at least from the perspective of sparing hurt feelings and making sure no one felt left out. The only problem with that solution is that I’d then be managing two blogrolls with over 200 blogs on them, and managing one of that size is quite enough.
Also, if I’m being honest, moving the whole blogroll didn’t feel quite right. On the OBS blog I’m a public persona of a sort, and the blogs on that blogroll are connected to the organization, not to me personally. Here, however, I’m just me, and I wanted my blogroll to be full of blogs that had a connection to me, either because they were written by friends, or because they were blogs that had some personal meaning to me.
I’m not sure I’ve entirely decided how I want to solve this issue. I could easily see the blogroll on this blog getting out of control, since there are a lot of outdoor bloggers I consider friends and a lot of outdoor blogs I enjoy reading and admire. It may be that I decide to limit the blogroll to 20 or so blogs and switch it out every month or so. It may be that the blogroll just grows and grows. I don’t know exactly how I’ll solve this dilemma. What I do know is that I believe that having a blogroll is important, and that I want to support the outdoor bloggers whom I admire and who are my friends.
If anyone has any suggestions for how I can accomplish those goals, please share them. If you think I’m making a tempest in a teapot and worrying over nothing, tell me that too. Sometimes that’s helpful to hear.
A Blog Manifesto
July 28th, 2009 | 13 Comments
I have to confess I’ve wanted an outdoor blog of my own for quite some time now. Over the past three years I’ve written a lot of posts on outdoor subjects, written for two outdoor blogs and never had the chance to say what I really thought unfettered by concerns about my opinions reflecting negatively on a company or an organization. Speaking or writing on behalf of someone or something else is harder than it looks and there are occasions when all you can do is bite your tongue and avoid a subject that is just too controversial.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the outdoor writing that I’ve done in the past. Had it not been for my corporate outdoor writing job I probably never would have started writing about the outdoors at all. That job also led to my meeting the people who eventually helped found the Outdoor Bloggers Summit. Writing for, and running, that organization has been a privilege and a pleasure, but it has had its constraints. When I write for that blog, I’m writing as the head of the organization, not as myself. What I say there can have an impact on a lot more than just me.
In the end, I realized I needed a place where the only one I spoke for was myself, and the Tenderfoot Diaries was born.
Those of you who have read my writing in the past probably think you know what you can expect here and, in part, you’re probably right. I will encourage outdoor blogging and seek to educate outdoor bloggers, just as I do on the OBS blog. I may resurrect Safety Friday, which began on the corporate blog I wrote. Hopefully I’ll keep to the standard of writing that you’ve come to expect from me. I certainly intend to try.
The part that will be new, and which you may not have seen before, is my opinions. I have a lot of them, and some of them may surprise some of you. I’ll also be telling you about my outdoor adventures, both the triumphs and the screw-ups. There may even, if I get over my camera phobia, be pictures. The main thing I promise is that I will always tell you the truth, and I’ll always strive to be honest and fair in what I write.
Right now, I’m not exactly sure what this blog will turn out to be, and I’m finding that rather exciting. For the first time I have an outlet for writing about the outdoors that has no other purpose than what I want it to have. That’s quite an exhilarating prospect.
I can’t wait to see what comes next.
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