openswitch

Have you ever thought that if you could go back and live your life over again there are certain things you would do differently? I have. For instance, I’d join some clubs in high school. I’d work harder to get good grades in college too. But sometimes I extend this thinking to openswitch. If I could go back and begin this very blog over again there are certain things I’d do differently.

1. Ask commenters to be more specific

There are many times when someone will read a post of mine and then leave a comment (yay!). However, sometimes the comment is a little vague, or could be taken several different ways with several different meanings.

In my early days of blogging I made the mistake of jumping to conclusions. I’d assume that the first way I read a comment was the way in which the comment author wanted it to be read. This is often not the case.

If a comment could be taken in more than one way, or if it’s a little vague in its meaning, then it is more than OK to ask the commenter to be more specific. Press them for additional information. Trust me, 99% of the time they’ll be happy to do so.

2. Don’t worry about how often (or not) you change your design

Some bloggers are neurotic about changing their site’s design (you’re reading one right now.) Others couldn’t care less about their design and focus instead on their writing (cf. The Jolly Blogger). Frankly, either way is fine. I know that I was constantly worried that I was changing my design too much. Nowadays I don’t care. I’ll change my design as often as I want and feel no guilt.

When it comes to design I don’t think it matters a whole lot if you change designs every few months or every other eon. What matters, as far as I’m concerned, is that the overall “feel” of your site remains somewhat constant or, if the “feel” is changing, it’s doing so fairly slowly.

Here at openswitch I’ve definitely got a “feel” that has been carried between redesigns. The degree to which that feel has been carried is open to debate. But one thing I’ve heard over and over again is that even though the design changed, people have always known they were still looking at openswitch when they landed here.

A lot of that consistency, I think, has to do with the logo. I decided about a year ago (give or take 6 months) to stick with the double red arrow as a part of my logo. When it comes to design, I find that you can get away with changing it around a lot as long as you have some good continuity between iterations in the form of a logo or some other distinguishable element.

If you’re one of those bloggers, however, who doesn’t really care to change your design much, that’s fine too. My only advice would be to make sure the design you’re sticking with doesn’t detract from the end user experience.

How do you know if your design is detracting from the user experience? Well, you could ask your users in a post for starters. But don’t do this too often. Readers can get sick of helping you design your site.

Alternatively you can go to one of many web design forums and ask them to ‘review’ your site. Point out that you’re not a designer and you’re simply looking to make sure that your site is giving a good user experience. They’ll probably be understanding and help you out. But again, don’t do this too often as people will quickly get tired of helping you design your site for free.

3. Never apologize for not posting

You never have to apologize for not posting. Never. It’s not that no one cares about how hectic your life is. Most of your readers actually probably do care and would love to hear about it. Hey, as far as I’m concerned you should write a post about how your dog pooped in your shoes as a tree fell on your house while the water boiled over on the stove at the instant your hard drive crashed and that’s why you didn’t blog yesterday. But your readers don’t feel that they’re owed an apology. So when you insist on apologizing it makes your readers feel awkward … like, high school dance and you really want to dance with your friends but you feel like you have to dance with you date, kind, of, awkward.

OK, maybe Dooce can get away with apologizing for not blogging. And maybe Jason Kottke. But not you.

4. Don’t be afraid to step on toes

I still struggle with this. I want to be the nice guy. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But let’s face it, you can’t please everyone all the time. Also, readers like it when you take a stand. It’s almost counter-intuitive but it’s true.

I know that I read more blogs who are written by people with strong convictions than not. Even if their convictions differ from my own, I read them. So hey, maybe you actually want to go and step on toes, I don’t know.

Think of some of the most popular blogs on the Net. Got ‘em? They all step on people’s toes, don’t they? They all blog like they have authority, right? Of course they do, otherwise they wouldn’t be popular.

But, when you take a stand, don’t be a jerk. Take a stand in a nice, well thought out way. And most importantly, back up your argument with facts … and link to those facts.

Also, I’m not talking about taking a stand just for its own sake. Take a stand on issues you believe strongly in. And then support your platform with well thought out and well articulated writing.

In any case, when you blog, blog like you’ve got a pair. (sorry mom)

5. Lastly, stop writing list posts

Stop writing articles like, “Five things I’d change about how I blogged last year” or whatever kind of freakin’ drivel you come up with at midnight. You know what? I’m going to boycott list posts. Frickin’ wastes of time.