Monday, February 06, 2006

I Love Your Ego

I want to continue to riff on Naked Conversations for a while…

Last week a good friend sent me an IM. It was in the middle of a conversation about starting up a business blog. It read simply “I love your ego.” My fragile ego couldn’t take it and I chose to ignore the comment and carried on with the conversation. I couldn’t face investigating whether this was an ironic or sarcastic remark. But it niggled at me. Finally, the next day my patience snapped, and I sent off an IM that started “I’ve got to know.” The reply came quickly and the answer turned out to be simple.

I want to protect her anonymity, though she gave me permission to use this story, but I will reveal that she hails from one of the countries that Scoble and Israel identified as slow adopters of business blogging. This lady is not culturally disposed to starting up a blog. She envied my ability to put it all out there. She chose “ego” perhaps as the choice of a non-native English speaker. “Confidence” might have been a better choice.

So here is the ironic thing. If it were a party or a social gathering, she’d be the one out there meeting and greeting, pressing flesh and smiling, making friends and doing it with ease. I’d be the one adding 3D relief to the wallpaper and trying not to get bored too early. But when it comes to blogging, it is a different story. What gives?

I think the answer is complex but it involves a few tenets. I’m prepared to…

• Seek forgiveness, rather than ask permission
• Be Passionate
• Be authoritative - talk about things I know about or happen to me personally
• Be interesting - by putting myself out there - exposed
• Build trust - by being real - I put more of myself out there than I ever would have thought possible
• Believe that Blog It and They Will Come
• Be thick skinned, others disagree with my opinion. I don’t worry about it, I link to them instead.
• Unilaterally link to people talking about my topic - be nice - I don’t play power politics with my Google ranking
• Take calculated risks
• And finally, and most importantly, I take solace from some words of my mentor Peter Coad. To humbly serve is the greatest thing there is…
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