Seth Godin on Benefits of the Blogging Process [en]

[fr] A force de se concentrer sur les bénéfices qu'il y a à avoir un blog (= des articles publiés), on perd de vue les bénéfices du simple acte de bloguer -- de l'utilité pour soi de cet exercice d'écriture.

Take 90 seconds to listen to the following video:

I found it thought-provoking. It reminded me of the fourth principle in my journey out of procrastination: find pleasure in the process rather than only the goal.

What Seth Godin says here is how beneficial the act of blogging is in itself, independantly of the impact of the published post on others. You know, the therapeutic effect of writing, and all that.

I think we’ve lost track of that with all the focus on the benefits of blogging as a finished product (the published post). The process of blogging is actually what is the most precious in this whole story.

Harry Joiner, who wrote the post where I found this video, says the following about his own blogging practice, which I think is worth quoting — also as food for thought:

My point is this: For a while last year, I began to think that — for me, anyway — blogging was simply a means to a marketing end.  It was about being #1 on Google for my primary keywords, and once that was accomplished — what was the point of blogging more?  After all, I had a company to run.

Turns out I was wrong. The primary benefit of blogging is to develop and maintain a teachable point of view on something of value.  It’s about learning to communicate more effectively.  And as Seth says in the video above, “to contribute something to the conversation.”

Happy blogging!

Similar Posts:

Just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean it's important (Seth Godin) [en]

[fr] Citation du jour de Seth Godin, dont je suis en train de devenir fan: "Ce n'est pas parce qu'une chose est facile à mesurer qu'elle est importante." (Contexte: nombre de visiteurs d'un blog/site.)

After having abandoned Google Reader during the crunch weeks preceeding [Going Solo Lausanne](http://lausanne08.going-solo.net), I heard about [Feedly](http://feedly.com/), installed it, and started to love it. (I’ll blog about it in more detail in a few weeks, but it’s a Firefox extension which piggybacks upon Google Reader.)

With Feedly, I’ve started reading blogs again — and also blogs that I didn’t read regularly. More and more, I end up reading posts by [Seth Godin](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/), and I’m becoming a fan. A few weeks ago, [How to Organize the Room](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/06/how-to-organize.html) but in clear writing something I’d noticed before (atmosphere and interaction are better if people are a bit cramped). [Saying thanks in a conference presentation](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/06/saying-thanks-i.html) gave me inspiration for how to do things properly next time around. And today, in [Who vs. how many](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/who-vs-how-many.html), he picks up on [Robert Scoble’s post against the rush to audience](http://scobleizer.com/2008/06/30/is-getting-more-traffic-your-real-goal/) and provides us with this “quote of the day” gem:

> Just because something is easy to measure doesn’t mean it’s important.

Seth Godin

This reminds me of what I was trying to say in [Twitter Metrics: Let’s Remain Scientific, Please!](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/04/27/twitter-metrics-lets-remain-scientific-please/), when I got annoyed by numbers thrown about under the assumption that they meant anything. (The post is mainly [a video](http://www.seesmic.com/video/zizwTlKZR5) because I couldn’t type at the time, but I’ve been told it was well worth watching.)

Similar Posts: