Even if it looks obvious, this post is NOT about the infamous Microsoft product. Today is a very special day for me on social media as I started exactly one year ago with my challenge of publishing one post every day. In this interview, I give you some more background about the project, my experience and my future plans.
KG: Why this whole thing of daily blogging?
Gábor: The whole thing started as a personal challenge exactly a year ago. The initial assumption was that I have tens of thousands of pictures in my personal archive and many of them may be interesting for sharing. And there is also that thing about the social media: I am firmly convinced that social media is a great thing if it is used properly. So I gave it a try last year and the major question was how long I will be able to do it every day.
KG: Actually how do you cope with this daily blogging?
Gábor: All those who know me are aware that I have a busy life both at work and home. At first sight, daily blogging may look like a big hassle. Well, the more you do it, the less it is. At the beginning I thought I would just share “one picture a day” on Instagram. But every day I felt there was more behind it. So I started with adding some comments which, by the time evolved to a complete post. The main issue is that blogging is a personal business. There is no such thing as wrong or right. You just scribble what you think. There will always be those who like it and those who think it is useless.
KG: What did you learn with all this?
Gábor: Well, many researches have already demonstrated that daily blogging and keeping a journal can contribute to a healthy lifestyle and to your personal balance. It keeps you more structured and organised and helps you balance your daily stress and eventually improves your drafting (and other?) skills. After one year, I can confirm that these findings are all correct. At the same time, the more this daily sharing became a habit, the more I was able to capture all the beauties of our world. The mass media is there to serve you with all the horrible news, my role is to modestly contribute to the positive ones. It is a great pleasure every day when I see something nice that reminds me of a good story or a nice experience.
KG: How people react?
Gábor: Even if I am not specifically doing this whole thing to be noticed or to have a huge horde of followers, my website has more and more visits (close to 18.000 in December). My various instagram accounts have a total of 10.000 followers. But the whole thing is not about the numbers. I receive a lot of encouraging feedback and sometimes critical remarks. I am happy with both of them as they help me improve. Well, except for the ones that call me names or threaten to sue me. Those are not very helpful.
Blogging is a great thing to reconnect with people. Many are approaching me about some post I shared the other day and we have a nice conversation. That’s the best part of it.
KG: What sort of technical background are you using? Is there anyone helping you?
Gábor: No, this is a project on my own. I have quite an extensive experience in managing websites. It is a sort of pass-time for me since a very long time. There is no fancy infrastructure or whatever behind it. The whole idea was that everyone is walking around with a phone in the pocket and there are so many pictures hanging around in your phone. Why not share them? I am doing exactly that. The website is a WordPress website hosted under my personal domain. Nothing too fancy, just a few million lines of code and a couple of servers in the basement.Just kidding.
And I spend every day not more than half an hour to curate my content on all platforms. It is a very strict rule to keep my social media sanity. I am trying to write at least one post every day and I am trying to keep a stock for days I have no time to draft a new one. It is a nice and relaxing moment in the evening. That’s all. It is nothing else but good organisation.
KG: What is the editorial concept?
As it is a project on my own, there is no boring meeting and harsh discussion in an editorial committee. I am just doing what I love and what I think is right. There are three types of topics I am trying to cover. As I love travelling with my family, the major part is about interesting places. These posts are organised in sections by countries. The second dimension is special focus to nature, interesting people and some beautiful flowers. Why? Because I like reading about such things. And the third one is a recent addition: book reviews. This topic requires the most preparation. Not only because I need to read the book I review, but also because I want to publish something correct and right. I know that writing a book is a great deal, so you have to be extremely careful and well-prepared if you want to criticise the outcome.
KG: Future plans?
Well, let’s see. 365 days is already something, but it is still quite a short time. If I can have a next milestone with number 1000, then I will be quite happy.
#365days #blogging #thinking #interview #fakeinterview #funnyornot #enjoyinglife
