An interesting topic came up on the cruise, and while I voiced my answer aboard, I figured I’d send out a quick post about it here as well. Brent (Blog | @BrentO) gave a presentation about “What I Wish I Knew when I Started” (or similar) and it was a talk about beginning a blog and writing and getting your opinion out there – basically building your brand online. Afterwards, Jorge (Blog | @SQLChicken) and Andrew (@MrAndrewDykstra) and I had a quick pow-wow as to how we choose topics for blogging. My contribution was a set of rules that I try to apply to myself for writing for this blog, and there are three big Don’ts that I try hard not to do.

Work

Work is my Number One do not write. Or to be specific, I try to not write about how I’m feeling about work or my perception as to how I’m being treated. Blogs first began as personal journals online, and that still holds true for many folks. That’s fine because it works for them. Even I once had a personal blog or two that have been brought down. I’ll write about challenges and issues and projects and solutions as they pertain to SQL Server, but I won’t allow myself to get personal about my employer. Because let’s face it: sometimes I feel as though my employer isn’t always acting fairly or in my best interest. We all do from time to time. But I’m not going to rant about it here. First, I don’t think anyone would actually care to hear about it. Second, it’s unprofessional to trash your employer online, anonymously or not. Finally, a rant can get around, and what begins as a bit of venting quickly grows into a epic tale about how Matt hates AIDS babies. I’m not chancing it. And yes, Jorge, you can include my quote from this blog.

Religion

Second on the list of easily inflammatory topics is religion. And this is tough for me because my second job is that of business manager for my partner’s church, the North American Old Catholic Church. As the business manager, or Moderator of the Curia in church speak, I help to guide the overall organization as we continue to see growth nationwide. I also help tune our message online and in press releases; come up with ideas for additional ministries and social justice work; develop, design and maintain our website; and in addition to this work nationally, we maintain a parish community within the Specialty Hospital of Washington, an acute care and skilled nursing facility located on Capitol Hill. This is a big deal for me as I’ve helped to grow the church since 2007 and we’re continuing to see growth. So why won’t I talk about it here?

As I mentioned before, religion can be a rough topic. We all believe in different things, and even within the same faith model, personal interpretation can be wildly different. Besides the fact that talking about my work for the church is inappropriate for a SQL Server blog, I find that many conversations and potential conversations remain open and affable when I don’t mention it. It’s not that I’m ashamed, because I am very proud of the work we’ve been able to accomplish, but just like my employment, it’s a different facet of my life that makes writing this blog easier because I keep it separate.

Politics

The big three are complete. I’m not going to write posts about how I’m a Democrat or that I still have a positive approval rating of President Obama. Just like my work with the church, it’s simply not applicable to a SQL Server blog. And similar to religion, politics can be polarizing. More than ever it feels as though we’re in a great political battle in this country and it’s Us versus Them, Conservatives versus Liberals, Red versus Blue, Fascists versus Socialists. Any logical person wound’t want to invite that kind of brouhaha onto a professional blog – well, I guess unless it’s a political blog. And the only politics we’ll have here is SQL Server versus Oracle.

Nah, I’m kidding. It’s SQL Server versus NOSQL…

Staying Focused

So what do I want to write about? SQL Server, of course. Even in the last month, I’ve felt as though I’ve crossed that line because of my Jury Duty, but because I wasn’t at work and was heavily distracted, I wanted to keep this blog as active as I could and let everyone know that I was still alive in the nation’s capital. Now that I’m going back to work as normal, I’m hoping that this blog will return to a bit of normalcy too.

And I believe that if you’re interested in starting your own blog, and follow some of these rules as to what you shouldn’t write, you’ll begin finding some success as well.