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Blogging in 2017

Blogging in 2017

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One of the things I find most interesting about the Timehop app on my phone is how much my style of posting (especially to Facebook) has changed over 10 years. The melodrama is embarrassing and entertaining in equal measure. It’s interesting to see how what I was prompted to post about has changed. (Notice how I have deliberately stayed away from labelling this change as growth!)

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this isn’t me, obvs

The last blog post I wrote was waaaay back in August. I was thinking about the reasons for this, and it’s a combination of two things

  1. Too many boxsets to catch up with on Netflix – seriously, if you haven’t seen Designated Survivor you are missing out! It’s prefect kick-back-and-relax telly for emergency managers!
  2. A feeling that I was loosing, or at the very least, confusing my own voice with my work one. As the lead for “external relations and digital” for London Resilience, I started to find it difficult to have enough to say that was notably different from what I was already saying at work.

I had some pretty strong views back in the day. You may remember such blog posts as “Exercises are pointless” and “CBRN is elitist“. Since then (maybe because I’d already vented?) I started to find I didn’t feel as passionately about things anymore. For a while I felt I was becoming disinterested, but realised it was more about feeling I didn’t have anything new to add to the conversation.

In 2017, I want to re-establish my voice and blog. This might sound grandiose, even pompous, but I’ve found blogging helps me solidify proto-ideas. The process of writing something down means wider reading, consulting different sources, opening myself up to new ideas and discussing with colleagues.

I guess the other aspect is that the nature of being online has changed too. Is a blog the best medium? Should I, in fact, be using Medium? What’s the relationship to other platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn? These are all things I’ll no-doubt continue to unravel throughout the year. As with Timehop, I hope that one day I’ll be able to look back through my blog and see how my thoughts have evolved and what they have been shaped by.

So what is likely to follow in 2017? I think it would be unwise to commit to a regular schedule of blogging, I don’t want to be a slave to the blog. However, expect posts about the things that interest me, that frustrate me, that could be better. I’ll try not to moan too much, it’s all intended to be constructive and to help me (and perhaps others) improve what we do.

Best wished for 2017, and remember, if you want to get in touch hit me up @mtthwhgn on Twitter – I’ve love to have a conversation not just air my own thoughts.