I have been building websites since 1996.

Hold on, I need to sit with that for a moment…

Jeez, I have been working on the web for 24 years…

Ok, my personal quarrels with the passage of time aside, you’d think with all that experience I’d be better at blogging. I’ve built more websites than I care to remember. I have taught hundreds of students as a Professor and written 3 books on WordPress, web design and expressing yourself online. I’ve given dozens of talks at conferences around the world and even consulted with billion-dollar companies on this very topic. And yet I still can’t blog regularly?

It took a ping from a colleague asking about my dormant site to make me really think about it. I meditated it on it a bit and I think I’ve figured it out. It’s the pressure of being an expert that compels me to write content that reflects that expertise. Or I just don’t write anything at all.

The funny thing is that I often don’t write content at that expert level so I’m not sure who I’m fooling.

It also stems from the categorization of my website. I feel like it’d be so much easier if I was a florist. I could just write about flowers and I’d be happy. Instead, I want to write about marketing and personalization, maintaining a website, where I’m speaking next, what is going on in my personal life, where I’m traveling, what cigars I’m enjoying, etc… This creates an existential crisis around the purpose of the blog.

Today that changes. Today I am going to start writing whatever the hell I feel like writing. It might be about the cool Airbnb I stayed in, the last cigar I smoked, an idea I had on how Google Maps could improve their app, or maybe a tutorial on how to use Jetpack Related Posts.

From now on I’m just going to unload and write about what makes me happy. Hope y’all enjoy it, but if you don’t 👋