Why do I blog?

Sometimes it's good to take a step back and really examine why you do the things you do every day. I wake up and start tooling away on The Daily Incite. Then the rest of the day tends to be split between research, advisory, vendor briefings, and writing. But in seeing the media storm around Robert Scoble's departure from Microsoft and seeing Guy Kawasaki's frequent ramblings about how important it is to be highly ranked, it makes me ask why I do this? Do I care whether I ever reach the A list? What the hell is the A list anyway?

After giving it some thought, I've come up with a couple of reasons, but they all get back to the same thing - blogging helps to build my business by building my brand. Ultimately, it always gets back to economics. If it doesn't, then congratulations - you are one of the few that works because you love what you do, not because you have to. If you don't love what you do and you don't have to do it, then you should get your head examined. But I digress. As fortunate as I've been, I still get up every morning and try to get something done to make sure I can keep the lights on.

But there is more to it than just building my brand. I love to write. I love to share my opinions. My ego loves to be considered an "authority" on information security. Most of all, I understand that I was out of the analyst game for 8 years. More people know me as a VP Marketing than as an analyst. I didn't realize I had to reinvent myself, but that's exactly what I'm doing. So I have to make my bones and earn your trust. I do that by adding value and by being right, with no real expectation of money changing hands. At least not yet...

If there is one thing that I've learned over the years, it's to respect the virtuous circle of doing the right thing. I don't charge for access to my opinions. I don't force folks to subscribe before I share my thinking or take a vendor briefing. Don't laugh, but in the early days of IT research - writing was your main product. Paper research notes sent to customers every couple of weeks. And for this they would pay $20,000 a year. And I hear about other analyst not talking to vendors or even more ridiculous - not providing any feedback if the vendor is not a subscriber. Sorry, that's doing the wrong thing.

Ultimately I want to make a difference. By not pulling any punches or sugar coating what I believe to be the truth, I'm doing the right thing. There are lots of folks that are happy to take your money and tell you what you want to hear. I'm not one of them. I am hopeful that folks read my stuff and it helps them do their job better. I do The Daily Incite to keep folks current in the unbelievably fast paced security market. Based on the feedback I get pretty much daily - it's working. I'll keep writing as long as folks are interested in reading.

In turn, when there is an opportunity to work together, maybe my readers will think of me first. Whether it's subscribing to my end user service when an appropriate project crops up. Or on the vendor side - doing an external speaking engagement or some strategy/messaging consulting. My hope is that if I do the right thing, everyone else will too.

It's also been drummed into my head over the years that "hope is not a strategy." I've only said that about a million times to people I've worked with over the years. So, I don't expect by cranking out blog posts, the phone will ring and people will just send me money. But I'm not ready to discuss my plans for world domination just yet, but suffice it to say - I spend time thinking about that too.