I've been blogging since May of 2000, long before I'd even heard of the term web log or blog for short. Possibly before the term had even been coined, but I'm too lazy to research that right now.
Back then, I was keeping my diary online, writing about my personal life and my most private and dark thoughts. It was odd finding that people were reading my diary, and even though I had no way for people to comment or contact me, several people were able to track me down using what I wrote about myself or by looking at my domain name registration information.
I became quick friends with several people who would contact me whenever I took a break from writing, worrying about whether I was still alive. I soon lost interest in this as I became a workaholic, not having the time to write about my day or my thoughts. I wonder today if I'd have allowed comments and kept writing, if my site wouldn't have become popular enough to sell ads on and make a living. At the time, I could have cared less about the business side of blogging.
My college education was geared toward communication, with my major being photographic journalism. I've been using my education to write press releases and keep an IT security blog where I work at during the day as an IT Manager. I often write controversial (to my boss, anyway) material that I believe is important, that soon gets taken down. It's what has my blog at work on a two month hiatus. I've only written since on things that my supervisor at work has asked me to write on.
I was considering starting to write in my old Internet diary again, but decided instead just to start a new blog with my own personal thoughts. Unlike my old blog, I'm drawing a line though. You probably won't hear indepth about any medical problems and family drama. However, you will get the best of Mark Adams.
My IT security blog at work has a lot of traffic, but it's all keyword traffic from search engines. It's actually what I have been targeting and I've been doing a great job at it. I "own" several Internet search engine keywords right now with very useful informational posts on the related topics. However, I have very few if any subscribers. The CEO where I work had me attend a webinar to help improve with that. The webinar said that I had to build my network before blogging. I couldn't expect to just write high quality articles and expect people to find them. Additionally, when people do find them, they see the article as the resource and not the blog itself.
I decided that this advice seemed sound, but if I was going to start networking, I was going to start networking me, and not the company where I've been working during the day. I started a twittter account and a linked in account. I'm following several successful business owners that I highly respect, and have been learning more about networking from my networking than I had expected. My new social network is slowly growing, and I feel that after a year, I should be able to continue writing well researched articles and start being recognized as a solid contributor in my industries.
However, had I provided a forum to my avid readers, and had I not abandoned them years ago, I probably would be much further along. Now that everyone has a blog, and many of them well written and insightful, I may continue being a drop in the bucket. That's okay.
My name is Mark Adams. I was an intelligence officer with the U.S. Department of Defense and studied communications and journalism in school. I'm currently applying my skills and experience in information technology and business in the civilian world. I have over 15 years of experience with IT security, Linux/UNIX, communication, marketing, and business development. This is my personal blog.