precisematters

I love the way the 37signals guys handle popularity. The web can be a tough place; Jeff shares about some of the missing voices because of the popularity problem in the blogosphere. Maybe the web isn’t immune to the pattern of popular culture exploiting the lives of celebrities as we see in the news everyday. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. He wasn’t referring to written communication exclusively, but Paul Graham told us people with new ideas would be despised.

I think there are two main issues at work here.

1) Every communication medium has strengths and weaknesses. Written communication fails to convey context because it’s asynchronous and one way. Always be sure to choose the right communication medium. Any form of “publishing” is inherently asynchronous. Blogs are personal publications. Of course, I’m not advocating all asynchronous communications, like blogs, should be eliminated. Just know its weakness.

2) Communication driven from passion results with an intensity that can easily be mistaken for something negative.

My blogging certainly hasn’t reached any such level of popularity to have dealt with these issues. However, I can remember specific cases of verbal and instant message communications in which I’ve been misunderstood as both arrogant or defensive because of my strong passion about creating software. Passionate infatuation is easily confused with love. Similarly passion in communication, especially in our beloved blogosphere, is often confused for something else.