I’m currently obsessed with the idea of exposure. That is, the emotional and intellectual exposure that blogging requires. Unless I really wanted to strip this blog down, I couldn’t really keep me out of it.

Still, it’s strange to me that blogs are compared often to diaries. I think they’re more similar to letters: directed outward to another person, writing and sending a letter is an extroverted act. A diary is a record of private reflection: it’s introverted, meant for the self.

So blogs are public letters, more than they are diaries, and they have the potential to be a volley of communication.

Trouble arises when private, diary-like blog posts are published for everybody to read. This arises in Penelope Trunk’s recent interesting blog post, which discusses the motivation behind blogging and Emily Gould’s fascinating story of writing for Gawker — another case study of “internet fame”. Note: needs a free NYT account).

When blogging for the public, what’s up for grabs? Personal relationships, evidently… if you want to risk that.

I’d say that a good blog is a mix of extroversion and introversion, or a balance of the public and filtered with the private and personal: combining the balance and veneer of a letter with the insight of a private journal.

On a dead serious note, blogging has been helpful to get over my ego. Self-consciousness and fear of error are the biggest enemies of action. In deciding to blog, I decided I’d rather do something and make certain mistakes, rather than not do it at all.

It was easy enough to do once I realised how many blogs there are out there (it’s such a huge number I won’t dare quote it, and the number is growing all the time). My blog is so tiny.

The gradual process of relaxing, being unafraid to make mistakes (they are just natural and human, after all), has freed up so much potential. Now I take myself less seriously, I take criticism less seriously.

Writing for an audience is scary, even if the audience is invisible (and tiny). For me, it was a battle between the desire to publish and the desire for privacy and non-presence. It might be true that bloggers are egotists, but first they were brave when they put their ego aside to press “publish”.

So it didn’t take long for me to make a decision (about 5 minutes after posting the speculative entry). This blog is now part of the Brazen Careerist blog network.

I couldn’t really imagine not taking advantage of this, as I’ve followed the community for a while, and have been consciously and unconsciously influenced by reading the posts. I think that my blog is worth more in a context of other blogs, just like any ideas I have are worth more in context of other ideas — and I’m really glad to have a chance to contribute advice about the design industry.

I just discovered Adaptive Path’s blog, which has some really good stuff. Chiara Fox wrote a post on The 5 Senses on Twitter, and discovered (through Twist) that it’s sight that is reported more often than the other human senses on Twitter.

That’s so strange to me. It’s understandable not everyone wants to report the texture of their sandwich, or the smell in their office. Hearing and seeing, if not smelling and touching, are quite central to interesting human experiences that other people can relate to, so I would’ve expected they’d be closely correlated on a graph.

Perhaps it’s a translation problem: Twitter slang includes “OH” which stands for “overheard”. So the word “OH” would be more common than “hear”.

So here’s the original graph showing a comparison of “smell, taste, see, hear, touch”, and here’s a graph showing “hear” replaced with “OH”. Considerably closer. I wonder if there’s slang for the other senses reported on Twitter? Here’s taste replaced with lunch.

Blogging so far has been really fun.

I was recently invited to join the Brazen Careerist network, which is very flattering. I’m a big fan of Brazen Careerist — it’s incredible how many smart, young people out there, and who are also cogent and interesting writers. They are an inspiring bunch!

I feel that before I consider adding my blog to the network, I need to think about what this blog is for and what direction it’s going to take. Believe it or not, this blog kind of exists without really having a conscious purpose. Is an unexamined blog worth keeping?

Part of me feels like I have no right to be talking about design and offering advice with relatively little experience, but on the other hand, I’ve thought all along that this blog could be a very effective learning tool — one that I can learn from, in working out my thoughts, and one readers can learn from, as well.

I’m currently learning a lot about mobile design at Future Platforms, a small mobile-focused software company in Brighton. Mobile is really interesting to me on lots of different levels, and I’m really loving what I’m doing. So I am going to write about that. I will be contributing to the company’s new blog (Future Platforms Labs) which is currently being set up, so I’ll be cross-posting here and there.

I would like to put more conscious thought into making this blog useful to those also in my shoes, by keeping my posts relevant to a specific readership. On one level, I’m dealing with day-to-day design issue, and on another, there’s the larger realm of the industry of design itself, with its tendency to change. (I’ve discovered that I’m interested in the big picture — that is, the really, really big picture. I’m often comparing the state of things now to how things were hundreds of years ago. Fortunately, I’m also interested in the minute detail of the present day — designing for small screens sort of calls for a focus on small detail — but I think it’s important not to get lost in it.)

My intention at the beginning was simply to push myself out of my comfort zone. This blog’s done that, and it’s given me a voice. People have told me they like my blog, which is encouraging — and the pressure is somewhat on with around 60 subscribers (thanks!). I’m not really in a hurry.

After all this, I’m still not sure how I feel about the act of exposure which blogging requires. When people I meet in “real life” tell me they’ve read my blog, my natural response is to feel really shy (actually, I said: “Oh no, I hate it when people read my blog!”). In any case, I’ve put it up here for anyone to read. So here it is. I’ll continue to push myself out of my comfort zone. If there’s anything blogging has taught me, it’s that my voice is just a small one amongst many other strong, defined, intelligent voices — but I’m glad it’s there, and being amongst these other voices is helpful in defining my own.