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Humility in the Blogosphere
Andrew Taylor's The Artful Manager just turned three years old.
Congratulations, Andrew, you are an inspiration to me and to everyone that I know who reads your wonderful blog. I just want you to know that those three years have not been for naught. According to a nifty little value-calculator located at the Business Opportunites blog, your blog is now worth $37,824.18. Not bad, huh?
Listen up, those of you who are about to go into an eye-rolling, sneering fit of superiority. You try and write about nonprofit arts management and rack up that kind of value. I defy you to do better.
One of the perils of living in the mind of a marketing geek - aside from the heaps of outdated data and information, the jumbles of strategems and tactics, and the over-stuffed pigeonholes of experiences, good and bad - is the compulsion I feel to monetize efforts.
This morning, I learned that my modest little blog is worth a paltry $3,951.78. Of course, I had deluded myself into thinking it was worth a whole lot more. I don't think small, especially when it comes to appraising my own value (grin). But, occasionally reality elbows my ego aside and forces it to sit down and shut up. This was one of those moments.
It's a little humbling. At 83 entries over nine months, that means that each entry is worth about forty-seven bucks and change. Considering that I spend about 90 minutes a day on each entry - researching, thinking, and writing - I'm making about $31.75 an hour. Wow. This is depressing.
The question I get most often about my blog? "Is it really worth it, Neill? It seems like a huge amount of work!"
Well, clearly it's not going to make me rich, and I doubt if it will make me famous - even though I do fantasize occasionally about getting a call out of the blue from some publisher or editor who can't wait to pay me big bucks for a book, a column, or a series of articles. (I understand that this is a common delusional condition of bloggers.)
Then I remember my late friend, Ken Kesey, who used to complain to me over breakfast that the janitor at his publisher's building made more money than he did. If One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Sometimes a Great Notion won't make you rich, I suppose that there's no hope for this blog.
Let me share a secret, here. Something that I supect many of my blogging contemporaries experience, as well:
This blog is its own reward. I love the discipline of writing almost daily. And I love scanning the environment, reading news articles, and considering other blogger's perspectives. The daily exercise of forcing myself to be clear, organized in my thinking, and interesting has been very good for me. I'm a somewhat sloppy writer and an even sloppier thinker. I have one of those minds that requires the process equivalent of a martinet nun with a hardwood ruler. It seems I need my cognitive knuckles rapped on a fairly consistent basis.
Has it been worth it? You bet.
I'll close today with sincere thanks to all those who comment and who send me the occasional e-mail message. Blogging sometimes seems pointless when days go by without a sense that anyone is reading. And then some penetrating observation is communicated. It feels great when that happens.
Posted on July 17, 2006 08:11 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Many thanks, Neill, for the public praise. And I certainly would agree with your wonderful paragraph on the intrinsic value of writing these beasts.
I often reverse the value question and ask myself what I would have paid for the access to smart people, the public exploration of new ideas, and the rigorous learning I've received from writing my weblog over time. The truth is, I couldn't have bought the personal benefits even if I had wanted to.
As Mastercard is fond of saying: priceless.
Well, I was going to leave Andrew a congratulatory message, but I figured since Neill seems to need a little more value-added, I'd hit both at once. :)
You both are a tremendous resource to me each day - not just for your often challenging insights but because I know you both care deeply about the field and the world and our potential impact on both. Please keep writing - even when we don't email or make a profound comment we are learning from what you write.