I’m Making Joe’s Promise

My friend and fellow SOBCon co-founder Liz Strauss tagged me for a pretty darn special thing last week while I was on vacation.

Now that I’m back, it’s time for me to respond to the tag for “Joe’s Promise”

Joe is a good friend and fellow blogger who writes consistently great stuff on “Working at Home on the Internet“. He’s also as honest and transparent as they come – traits which I greatly admire.

So it really wasn’t that much of a surprise that Joe, when he realized that he was “missing” from our little blogging community for a while, decided to make a reappearance in a big way, by putting “right out there” a promise to all of us:

- I will be sure to comment on other Blogs if I can add to the conversation.
- I will respond to comments on my own Blog.
- I will acknowledge any links to my Blog with a comment on the linker’s Blog.
- I will continue to link to other Blogs that are pertinent to a posts content.

- I will once again be a part of the Blogging Community.

I polled the “tagees” to see how this is resonating in the blogosphere. My observations were most interesting:

Liz called it “a stunning example of writing” (I agree).

Chris Cree (another SOBCon co-founder), said this: “It’s a good set of promises to keep, whether you are brand new to blogging, or whether you are an old hat that like me that has been focused elsewhere.”

Rick Cockrum asked these questions about Joe’s Promise and also encouraged us to make our own promise: “Do you think it’s a worthwhile goal? Do you think it’s a worthwhile promise? You can do it. Do it in your heart, or if you want to tell the world, do it on your blog.” He also created the cool button you see at the beginning of the post (there are two other colors too).

Jesse Petersen puts it all in perspective in his take on the promise: “Sometimes you just need to pull back, lie low, and observe.”

I like Giddy Tigers viewpoint on how “going missing” can so easily happen: “Some bloggers are often led astray when they have been blogging for say months on end, or years… they forget the reason why they started blogging in the first place.”

Troy Worman cautions us to “consider it (the promise) carefully. A promise is a promise is a promise.”

April Groves calls the promise a “commitment to untangle the wires”. I like that analogy a lot.

Lastly, a tumblelog On Financial Success puts it succinctly, calling Joe’s post “an excellent reminder to bloggers and web entrepreneurs that communication and relationships are ‘integral to blogging’”.

What’s my take? If I really want blogging to be a true social medium and not a personal diary, I need to fully subscribe to these tenets to make it work. Since I’m in the former camp and not the latter, I’ll say this:

I’m making Joe’s Promise too!

I’m passing this on to Hilda, Valeria, Tim, Jodee, and Rosa. Spread the promise!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Tweet This Post