Happy 4th Birthday, TechCommGeekMom!

I knew that my little blog’s birthday was coming up soon (I always remember the month, but never the day), but when WordPress sent me the following note:

I received my reminder that it was today, March 9th! (One of these days, I’ll have to look up this blog’s horoscope.) As many know, this started as a grad school project, and here it is, four years later, and I’m still here.

Four years of blogging and curating content for this blog have yielded over 39,000 views (and it’s still growing) and over 1100 posts on topics of m-learning, e-learning, technical writing and editing, content strategy, digital marketing, localization issues, and so much more. That’s a LOT for a little niche blog, wouldn’t you say? Not bad for a blog which would be a preschooler if it were human.

But lately, it’s felt more like that four years is dog years–like I’ve been writing this for 28 years instead.  I know as a joke, I said I was going to be closing down this blog about a year or two ago.  No, I’m still not going to be shutting it down, but man, it’s hard to keep up now.  You’d think after posting 1100+ posts that it would be enough, but noOOOOooo. There are still requests for more, and it’s hard to keep up.  Life changes in the background. I’m not a grad student anymore, and I’ve now been through several positions since I started this blog. The blogging burnout is real.

My main concern is that I can’t keep up with a schedule of posting an original blog post every week. Part of that is coming up with original content! This time last year, it was a little easier because I was taking my digital marketing course, so I had something to spark my mind and comment about.  This year, I’ve started a new job in copywriting and editing, and it’s only my first week, so I’m hoping that it will provide something for me to write about in time.  You’ve probably noticed that I’ve written a lot about careers in tech comm–or in general–lately. I’m trying to figure out how to start planning ahead a little bit to move my career forward, and yet I feel like some of my more recent steps have been steps backwards.  It’s hard to write about things you aren’t passionate about, after all. I still have a passion for tech comm, and I’m so happy to be part of this community. Yes, I’m tapped out of ideas, unless someone can give me a topic to write about.

So, you might not see quite as many posts in the next year or so, but that’s because when I do curate content or post something original, I want it to have some sort of value or be something interesting, at least. It needs to be helpful or insightful, if I can help it.

Perhaps the maturity of this blog is in that I don’t want it to be full of too much fluff. I want some substance to it now and then, and I try to provide that, as well as provide an outlet for community discussions. I’m grateful for those of you who have chosen to comment and join the discussions here on TechCommGeekMom, and hope that you will continue to help us all explore difference perspectives and experiences.

After four years, I suppose I’m not as much of a beginner technical communicator as I was when I started this blog, but it still feels like it most of the time. There are concepts I understand, but haven’t implemented, so I can’t always speak with any authority.  This applies to my “outside world” life too. For example, at my current position, I’m thinking that employing some sort of single-sourcing process for their content would help this company tremendously, but they aren’t thinking about it, and I wouldn’t know how to go about making suggestions on how to do it since I’ve never done it myself on any scale. But I know my mind is in the right place with that. So, I can’t say much on that topic, for example.

Time will tell how TechCommGeekMom continues. I always have big plans, but I can’t always make them happen due to time, money, and circumstances.  I would still like to have a podcast/videocast feature at some point, but I just haven’t got the time to get that organized at the moment. But someday…

I would love to get fellow technical communicators to guest blog on here, too. I don’t let just anyone post on here, but if you would like to write a blog post, but don’t want to set up a blog, consider posting here. I would love to have other voices on here! If you are interested about talking about a tech comm topic, let me know.

I’ll also try to include more about some of the things I’m doing soon. For example, I will be attending this year’s STC Summit and Conduit, the STC-Philly Metro Chapter’s Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference.  I’ll be tweeting up a storm, I’m sure, on @TechCommGeekMom, but perhaps this year I’ll post more photos so that you can get a feel for the conferences and the great people who I see each year at these various conferences. These are definitely the movers and shakers!

Lastly, I want to thank all my readers. Without you, there is no TechCommGeekMom. I’d just be a geek mom instead. I appreciate your patience with me, as this blog is always a work in progress. I try to be as honest as I can be, sharing the best and the worst of my experiences, and I hope that’s something you come back for from time to time.

In the meantime, if you have any ideas of something you’d like to see on TechCommGeekMom, please let me know! Help me make this blog the kind of blog you like to return to, and let me know what kind of topics you are interested in reading about in the tech comm field!