Ideas of March

Published on 15th March 2012

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Earlier on today, I noticed that there were a few tweets going around about Ideas of March – and wondered what on earth it meant! A brief twitter search and tweet from the lovely Stu set me on the right track to reading about it. Since then I’ve read some great posts from Sarah Parmenter, Meagan Fisher and Chris Shiflett and it made me more determined to write my own post on the subject.

For me, blogging is a way I can express myself. I can talk about whatever subject I want, when I want and give my true opinion on it. However, as Sarah touched upon it hasn’t always felt like my opinions can be put out there. I’m naturally a worrier and think things through too deeply – and sometimes rather stupidly I care what people think a little too much. I also dislike confrontation, so I suppose it comes naturally to me to want to not be too provocative or argument-provoking in my posts. Hell, even in my last post I decided to gloss over certain aspects of one section as I didn’t want to be the bad guy.

But really, where does that get us? If we – or more to the point with this blog post, I – don’t blog about what we’re truly thinking about, reading or discussing it’s getting us nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Personally, I know I need to blog more and give back to the community what it has so far given me.

Sarah and Meagan wrote two things that stuck out to me:

Writing is hard because it means we must think deeply, take risks, and get comfortable with asking questions instead of having all the answers. – Meagan Fisher

I’ve lost that free-blogging spirit, instead sometimes worrying about not inciting trolls, gender arguments or being over sensitive. That worrying ends up in many posts in the “drafts” section, and not many actually posted. – Sarah Parmenter

Both these quotes really hit home with me – I think I need to work on using less clichés? :) – and made me think more about why I’m blogging and where I want to go with it. I need to think about why I’m writing, what it means to me and how I can use what I’ve learned to give back and help others in the way they’ve helped me.

Sarah’s post in particular has inspired me to really not give a crap about what other people think. Sure, it’s scary as hell to think of putting my true feelings, thoughts and ideas out in the open and it’s a given that it won’t always get accepted 100% of the time. My posts might cause arguments and name-calling or positive thoughts and idea generation but either way it’s creating a discussion and that’s what we need to be doing more of. When we have ideas we can bounce off each other that’s when our industry does amazing, amazing things. I’m so proud and privileged to be a part of this industry and surrounded by some super talented people. Each and every day I find someone else that inspires me from the way that they work, their positive attitude or even the way they consistently go out of their way to help others find solutions to their problems.

I realise that this post has turned into a sort of thoughts-tumbling-out ramble, but hopefully you’ll be able to make some sense of it. :) Either way, my commitment is here: Not only will you see more blog posts from me, but you’ll see a less fearful approach to writing from this blog in the future.

If you want to join in Ideas of March, blog about it and tag it with #ideasofmarch on Twitter. :)