Blog posts as starting points

In my “Open sourcing a quiz maker” blog post, I frame my quiz maker as a step toward what could be something better: a script that you can use, but where I see a vision for something more robust and reliable.

This got me thinking about how blog posts can, in many ways, be a starting point. A blog post can start a discussion, help build community around an idea, be a written representation of one’s foundational thinking on a topic, contribute an idea to the commons that needs further development, and more. ¹

I like to use the “Brainstorming” preface in the titles of posts where I explicitly explore a new idea (i.e. in my “Brainstorming web guides” post, in which I documented my thinking at the time around short articles that help people use the web).

But in many ways, every blog post is a starting point. Blog posts move me further in my thinking. I can draw on themes that I have written about before. I can write a blog post that develops an idea I have started in a previous post, like I did in the sequel to my Home post, Forward.

My "Moments of Joy" series started with one piece of writing and developed into both a series and a way I see the world. I can't say the blog post is the only reason I started looking for more moments of joy, but I can say the post likely helped me define what I was thinking at the time when the idea was developing.

Of course, blog posts can, too, be an artefact of development: the culmination of longer thinking on a topic. With that said, such a post may be a starting point for someone else: a firm enough introduction to a topic for a reader that encourages them to do further research on said topic, for example.

The idea of blogs as starting points this morning is maybe a means by I can better coalesce in my mind what a “blog post” means to me. My thinking on this topic explicitly is early. I will need more time to reflect. With that said, I thought I would share what I was thinking as a starting point, both for me and, perhaps, as an artefact that may inspire you, too.

Do you see your blog posts as a starting point in some way? If you have thoughts on this idea, feel free to send me an email or post your thoughts on your website!