Feedback – The Best Navigation System

Feedback. Is. So. Important. Vital. It’s the only way I know I am not driving us all over a cliff.

I received some feedback from my blog today. It came in the form of a conversation. I sent an email out to an acquaintance I work with on a nonprofit with a link to my blog in the signature. I am learning how to get traffic to my website and this is one of the methods.

He mentioned that he clicked on the link to my blog and said it looks like my blog is about that free verse/poetry kind of stuff. This is good feedback because I am still discovering exactly what my blog is about. I did cringe somewhat though because I’ve heard that reaction before about poetry and honestly I am a little surprised that so much poetry has shown up on my blog. When I was envisioning what my blog was going to be about; poetry was not part of the vision. I love poetry, but I also know it can turn people off or at least turn off the left side of their brain (mine included). The left brain looks at poetry and then because content and context are blurred and the sound and shape of words have just as much value as the definition, the left brain gets frustrated. The entire premise behind the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is to frustrate the left side of the brain so the right side can take over and draw in peace. The left side of the brain can be a bit of a bully at times because it knows how to talk therefore it thinks it is smarter. Believe me when I say I sometimes have the same reaction to poetry. “Really, you are going to make me work to understand what the heck you are trying to say.” But I do think poetry and other forms of art open a window and is a way of wrestling with opposites. So together we will see if more poetry shows up on this blog.

After he commented on the free verse thing he went on to talk about someone he knows who has a blog and who is an ego manic and the blog is all about how great he is and all the reasons he is so great and nobody  is really interested in reading his blog. Ok, this is a reaction that I was concerned about and honestly I have harbored myself for a very long time when it comes to people who blog so it was refreshing to hear it said. “Really, do you think what you have to say is so interesting that you have to write about it everyday or every week and if that isn’t enough you feel you have to broadcast it to the world.”

So why am I doing this? My decision to blog felt random at first without a strong purpose, but I kept feeling the pull to do it. I am just now beginning to see the many connections to the work I want to do and this  website. 15 Reasons Why You Should Blog resonates with me and does a good job of articulating the reasons why I blog. I have also learned a tremendous amount about web design and the internet and how internet traffic moves in specific ways. My left brain loves this stuff!

Before I was just a car driving down the internet freeway and now I think of it differently. I have a somewhat more aerial view and I begin to see a network of roads and intersections in addition to the view from the road I am driving down which makes me want to create roads and intersections of my own. So let me know if you see me veer too far to the left or right or you would like to steer for a while. I really am a pretty quiet back seat driver and although I love to drive I am also a good passenger.