The Power of a Blog

I have to say that I am both surprised and impressed at the power a simple blog such as mine can possess. After all, I write as a hobby, not for any kind of gain, financial or otherwise. Yet the exposure my posts have brought seems to be opening many opportunities!

For example, when I wrote about having some fun with accelerometers, somebody from Kionix (the company that makes the devices we used in class) contacted me and wanted to know if I'd like my own accelerometer to play with. Well, sure - why not!

Then I posted a comment on a story I saw on reddit about my mini-course. Count 'em: not one, but two people followed my link and liked what I was doing enough to write me an email! The first person was highly involved in the movement to get more women interested in computing, and the second was a researcher in computer science education. I think both will be excellent contacts for some future projects I've been cooking up in my mind.

And just a couple of days ago, I received a fairly random phone call from somebody at school. Apparently they had read my post about the Donor Dinner I attended and really liked what I wrote. Enough that those in charge of preparing the donor report for 2007 want to include some of my text in the final version of the publication! What's more, they want to use a photo of me to go with it. I will be having a little photo shoot this Wednesday.

Every time something like this happens I get really excited, which makes the time spent writing worth it. If you write a blog but aren't sure that people actually read it, just keep at it. You might be surprised to learn who's had a look!