Testing, Testing…

According to some estimates, there are more than a billion blogs on the Internet right now. If you were to print each of those homepages onto a single A4 side of paper, they’d span the circumference of the earth seven-and-a-half times, or get three-quarters of the way to the moon before collapsing in a heap of self-indulgent, search-engine-optimized twattery. And more are on the way – at a rate of about 175,000 per day, apparently.

So there’d better be a good reason for this one, right?

I’d like to tell you that if you get this blog beamed into your RSS reader every week you’ll come away more enlightened, wiser, happier. In fact I’d love to say that. But it isn’t true. If that happens along the way, then that’s terrific – a wonderful bonus. But that isn’t my primary intention.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a journalist. I used to take a week off from my university lectures, pick a topic, interview as many people as would speak to me and trawl through as many pdf documents as my inkjet would print, and then come back to report on what I thought was going on. It was fun, and eventually led onto a magazine editing job, a spot of work at a local paper, and a couple of stints (OK, internships) at national broadsheets.

Somewhere along the line, I became disillusioned. Whereas I was interested in picking tough questions and getting out there to try and answer them, the towers of journalism seemed to have abandoned this. Instead I found myself churning out material quickly, often recycled from press releases or regurgitated from a Reuters report. And it wasn’t just my experience either: my conversations with those who’d been in the business for a while revealed the same, and the research on the subject agrees.

It was drab, rushed, and intellectually deadening. I got out before I’d really got in.

So I’d like to say that this is where you’ll find your well-researched panacea to the stultifying morass that is the modern media.

But again, that isn’t true.

In reality, this blog is primarily designed to be a writing outlet. That’s it. Trying to stop a former wannabe writer from writing is a bit like trying to stop Cliff Richard from releasing new records every decade. You can cut out his radio airtime and refuse to play his music videos on MTV. But as soon as the clouds emerge to block out the sun and the rain pours down at a Wimbledon tournament, he’ll be back out to get you – whether you like it or not.

(And with analogies like that, you can see why I need to practice this a bit more.)

So what will I be blogging about?

I’ve recently graduated, and I’m just embarking on a journey into the world of business – if by ‘embarking’ you mean sending out CVs and filling out online application forms, and if by ‘journey into the world of business’ you mean becoming a full-time Excel monkey with a formidable array of buzzwords and management lingo. So there will be some of that

I’m also still learning Chinese, and going out there soon (and again next year, maybe). So expect some stuff on China, too.

Besides that, it’ll be whatever comes to my mind, or whatever seems relevant. If something interests you along the way, great. If it doesn’t, no problem. Unlike with Cliff, you have the freedom to stop listening.

So see you around, possibly.

- Rob

Tagged as: Intro