Haunted by the ghost of a blog

I’ve spent the last couple of days at the IABC European Leadership Institute, held this year in Stockholm.  It was a great event, good to catch up with old friends, and meet several new ones.  While I attended mainly as a past chair (or should that be past-it chair?) of the region, and presented a couple of the sessions, I came away feeling inspired, having learned a number of things that will help me in both my IABC life and my professional life. 

One of the things I learned, to my horror, is that I’m being haunted by a bloggy ghost.  I was chatting with long-time IABC member (and social media guru) Allan Jenkins about my new blog, and he reminded me that this is not my first attempt, and that there was still an embarrassing, two-year-old, three-post blog out there with my name on it that should probably be deleted. 

First, thanks Allan, it’s now gone.  But I’ll still come clean for those of you who thankfully never saw it.  I started it as an experiment, and I expressed my skepticism about the whole blogging craze.  And although re-reading it this morning, I am not embarrassed about anything I said then (in the context of where blogging was two years ago), and wouldn’t take it back, it is incredibly outdated, and the fact that I then abandoned it and left those last words hanging there to be googled two years later is mortifying.

I suspect there are probably hundreds of thousands of other blogs and free web pages out there that were started and abandoned.  It’s especially easy to lose interest in a brand new blog, if no one is commenting (as is the case here).  But what I didn’t realize back then was that even though no one was posting comments, there were a few readers.  I felt lonely, I didn’t think anyone was paying attention, and wasn’t committed enough to keep at it until they did.  Probably shouldn’t have started it in the first place, since it wasn’t for the right reasons.  But it was, at least, a learning experience.

So I’ve banished the ghostblog, may it rest in peace.  Took a few attempts to remember the password, but it was easy as anything to blow it up once I had.  This time, I’m sure I’ll stick with the blog.  I’m still feeling pretty lonely, and would appreciate even a “hi there” post from anyone who may be reading.  I’m learning as I go, and it helps to have experienced bloggers like Allan who are so willing to share their knowledge.