Day 29: Be a Rock Star

With only two days to go, I’ve been struggling with how to wrap this challenge up. The closer I get to the end, the more I realize how much more I’d like to share. Part of the dilemma for me is that this challenge has not really discussed the ’spiritual’ side of blogging very much. I’ve tried very hard to make each of these challenges an actionable item, something concrete that you can actually DO to improve your blog, your blogging toolbox, and your skills as a blogger. However, there’s certainly more to blogging than widgets, feeds, links and comments. I was very thankful that the tips shared by other bloggers on Day 27 hit on so many other pieces that I thought ought to be covered. However, there’s just a few points that I wanted to share my own spin on.

For lack of a better way to describe it, today’s challenge is to go out there and be a rock star! What’s the difference between a rock star performing in their garage and a rock star performing in a stadium filled to capacity? Absolutely nothing… in their own mind. A true rock star puts as much effort into every rehearsal and every show, regardless of the size of the audience. They do so because they love performing and they want to share it with anyone and everyone.

Blogging is very similar to this. Every blog starts off with an audience of zero. We all started out talking to ourselves. We all tried to figure out how to draw an audience. We were all thrilled and amazed the first time we realized that a few people had visited our blog. We all get a smile on our face when we see that someone has taken the time to leave a comment, and a scowl if we learn that it was spam! But if you were to compare yesterday’s blog posts to many people’s very first blog posts, I don’t think you’d find them all that different.

So with that in mind, consider this carte blanche to go ahead and blog as though you already have an audience of thousands. Go ahead and promote the blog posts you’re proud of in full confidence that they’re worth sharing with anyone and everyone. Be bold enough to ask other people to participate in your surveys, polls and memes, regardless of whether you feel you’re ‘on the same level’ as them. Rankings be damned, we’re all educators who are linked together by our common desire to share and learn with each other.

Educators are not marketers, and I’ve found that more often than not most budding bloggers are almost embarrassed by their blogs. When they tell me about their blogs, they add to their descriptions phrases like, “well, it’s just a first effort” or “it doesn’t have any readers yet” or “I’m just playing around” or “I’m just trying to catch up to everyone else.” I can’t help but think to myself that anybody who is putting themselves out there and blogging should be nothing but proud of their own efforts! It takes time, commitment and confidence to stand up and share your thoughts with the world, and anybody who does so should be applauded.

With that in mind, I truly think you should take pride in your efforts. Don’t be shy about listing it as your URL on social sites. Add it to your signature in emails. Create yourself a set of Moo cards for when you meet other educators. Let your colleagues at school know about it, as well as your administrators (if you don’t feel comfortable sharing it with them, you might want to spend some time thinking about why). Let your parents, friends and relatives know about it so they can check it out too! Announce your blog posts in places like Twitter, Plurk and Ning. If you think somebody specific ought to see a post, email them a link. Share comments linking back to your blog on pertinent posts from other people.

I truly feel that even if you are the 1,000th person to chime in on a specific topic, your thoughts, ideas and opinions are just as valuable as the first person to chime in. Nobody else has your specific set of experience. The lenses through which you see things are completely unique to you and you may have a spin on things that are pertinent to people. Let’s face it, even if there’s only 2 people out there that would benefit from what you have to say, isn’t that worth the time spent sharing it??

Image by AdamNF via FlickrJust as a concrete example of this, think about this 30 Day Challenge in itself. It’s based on Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog challenge. I had the challenge flagged for about a year and a half as something that I was interested in. It took me nearly 18 months to finally be ready to act on it. His challenge has had hundreds of participants along with an immense amount of spin off challenges created from it. I could very easily have just taken his challenge and followed through it step by step and added my name to the list of participants, which was my original intention. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be more valuable to ME to create my own mashup of it, focusing on challenges that would be pertinent to educators. There are plenty of other places to get blogging advce or challenges to participate in, but I was hoping that there might be a few people who would get some benefit from joining me for this one. I’ve been stunned by the turnout.

Point being, this could have been a month long fiasco! Some of my other endeavors have been spectacular failures before. But you have to put yourself out there and give yourself a chance at success. It’s all a learning experience, regardless of the result.

When you get right down to it, the best way to be a successful blogger… is to be one. To put yourself out there, to be bold and promote yourself, to be confident in your worth and quite simply to be the Rock Star you truly are.

So today’s challenge is to give yourself the rock star treatment. The details are entirely up to you. Maybe you’ll direct message a few people on Twitter and ask them to take a look at a recent blog post of yours. Maybe you’ll add your blog to your email signature. Maybe you’ll give some friends a call and ask them to check out your blog. Maybe it’ll just be leaving a comment here and asking people to come visit it and leave a comment. Only you can know what kind of Rock Star you are, so do what feels right for you.

Then take the time to share what being a Rock Star means to you.

And tomorrow, we wrap the whole thing up! Anybody else getting misty eyed?

30d2bbb image by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

9 Comments

Errin
11/29/2008

I’m so glad I found this post! For the past week I’ve been an “almost embarrased” beginning blogger. I started a professional blog two weeks ago to learn on my own before I create a classroom blog in the next few months. There’s so much to learn and I love it, I’m hooked already! It is, however, discouraging to be an unknown – the whole notion of the “little fish in the big sea” has taken on a whole new meaning for me.

I found your post very encouraging and I look forward to people stopping by to comment on my thoughts at ‘Just a Thought’. Thanks!

Errin´s most recent blog post.. Planting Seeds and Bubble Wrap

Nedra Isenberg
11/29/2008

My blog is now a year old, yes one of these days I’ll be writing a post about that, and I still remember that excitement of the first comment! It was hard to believe that someone would actually take the time to read what I had to say but then to comment as well. Even now I continue to get excited about each comment.
I have my blog linked to some Nings and I’ll Plurk a new post from time to time. Even though it made me very nervous, because as far as I know no one else blogs in my district, I gave my blog address out to my coworkers and admin. Only one admin checked it out. That was a little disappointing and I haven’t tried again. The one group of people I haven’t promoted it to is my family. I’m considering put a link on my Facebook page so relatives can check it out. Even though I still have quite a few days to cover-I did some beginning and ending challenge-thanks for doing this challenge and helping so many of us improve our blogs.

Janet Bianchini
11/30/2008

I’ve been following your postings with great interest as I am a “newbie” blogger. I started out 30 days ago and the journey of discovery has been absolutely phenomenal. What you have written on today’s posting is particularly uplifting and very encouraging. You are so right regarding the example of” a rock star performing in their garage as opposed to performing in a packed stadium. The difference is absolutely nothing…in their own mind”. Yes, the only person holding myself back is me! Errin’s idea of ” little fish in the big sea” is so apt. It’s a huge world out there and the possibilities are limitless.
Thank you, Steve, for doing this challenge. You are a true rock star!

Many thanks for all your wonderful, practical tips! I will endeavour to be the best blogger I can

Day Twenty-Nine - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/30/2008

[...] twenty-nine in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series was yesterday and asked us to look at Day 29: Be a Rock Star. Essentially, we are asked to put the same kind of effort into our the public comments that we [...]

wildlemon
11/30/2008

As a teacher in training, one of our classes required us to start blogging and following other blogs. I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and have read the 30 days to better blogging posts with great interest. I appreciate the pointers in your posts and I’m trying to better manage my time/number of blogs that I follow. Thanks for all the help.

Natalie
11/30/2008

Okay, finished this one. I decided to go all out and promote myself on my own blog. I discussed my professional affiliations and activities and how I let people know about them. Kind of a weird experience, but this is a topic that I’ve been thinking about. Why don’t we promote ourselves and our accomplishments, much less our blogs? I am gratified to see that my readership has gone up since this challenge started. It’s definitely still modest by anyone’s standards, but there are a couple more visitors each week!

Martha Thornburgh
11/30/2008

OK, I’ve been following along the whole way and I am not sure where to comment on the last few challenges. They seem to come together for me in many ways. I have gained confidence through this challenge. I have tried new things, learned techniques and learned from others who blog. I have been honored by being tagged in a meme and quoted on someone’s blog. Today I even created my own meme. We will see how that goes. I actually have several blogs, but have concentrated on http://digital-doors.blogspot.com for this challenge. I think that in the past, I really wasn’t expecting a conversation. I was just sharing how tos and new ideas. Now I feel that my blog is growing. I now want my blog to be a part of the conversation. I still feel far from “Rock Star” status, but I will try to make sure I am heard in this great big conversation we are having about engaging students with powerful learning.

Thanks so much Guru Steve!

Martha Thornburgh´s most recent blog post.. All Students Meme

Day Thirty - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/30/2008

[...] Day thirty in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series was yesterday and asked us to look at Day 30: Choose Your Own Adventure. Essentially, we are asked to select our own task or challenge for the [...]

Nominated - Teach42
12/3/2008

[...] don’t believe they have much of a reason to jump in and contribute to the conversation that they’re actually Rock Stars. I’ve preached that they need to take pride in their accomplishments major or minor and share [...]

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