When I started blogging, I really didn’t consider what it meant to me, or what I was going to do with it. At the time, I knew that it was growing into an important medium, and I also knew that the changes I was seeing in the online world, especially with more interactivity between web site users and web site owners, was increasing in new and wonderful ways, and blogging was just one of them. I’ve always been an enthusiastic web user; It’s safe to say that I’m a fan of the web. Whether you call it Web 2.0, or 3.0, or any other litany of buzzwords to try to label this growth we’ve experienced in technology, the growth of the internet community was always something I expected.

To me, the internet…just is. It evolves and moves and reinvents itself in both small and big ways. The promise of what the web can be either gets fulfilled on a daily basis, or is reinvented to give us web enthusiasts even more to look forward to. Programmers, developers and the people that use the internet have always asked, out loud, “What can it do next?” And the intrepid among them say, “let’s find out.”

In all honesty, when I started my first blog, I felt like I had just joined the club of the “cool people.” Now I have a blog just like them, and I can be an equal participant in this whole internet popularity game. In retrospect, these were feeble ambitions to say the least, and honestly, not a good reason to do it at all. My father had a saying, “If you’re going to do anything, do it right, and for the right reasons.” Now that I’ve taken the time be introspective and to really be truthful with myself, it’s important that this idea of honesty of intent be something I steer myself by.

I didn’t start blogging for the right reasons. At times, I’ve felt as if my blog site has sat here, patiently, just waiting to be a pundit for me. Have I wasted my time blogging? No, I don’t believe that. Complacency aside, I still did some really cool shit. I did interviews, and have considered important topics, but I haven’t let my blog site live up to its full potential. There is so much I could have experienced and learned, if I had just realized what it could have been.

I knew it (blogging) was a fantastic way for personal branding, and as such, a great experiment in personal growth. Being OPEN about your thoughts and ideas online not only gave a blogger a seat of authority in a particular field, but also in many ways, it’s a recorded journey of one’s own growth in that field. One of the coolest concepts behind blogging is that behind the words on the screen, there is a human being typing away at a keyboard, someone with enough gumption to sit there and tell the world, or at least those in the world that are interested, what he or she sees and feels about the topic at hand. Popular bloggers built up personal communities as time went on, and as their readers grew, so did their own knowledge benefit and grow from this exploration of it. Their own readers would suggest new and interesting concepts that either the author hadn’t thought about, or the ensuing discussion sparked a re-examining of. Damn. That’s just cool beans.

We are human, critics of modern man aside, and our propensity and habit to grow and change is a daily occurrence. There are things we know today that we did not know yesterday. There are things we believe today that we did not believe yesterday. I’ve changed in significant ways over the years, and my one regret is that I didn’t make more of a valuable public record of it.

It’s not that I’m an attention whore, or even think that I could have been some kind of blogging sensation, SEO “rock star”, but looking back at what my blog could have been, and could have meant, as a record of not only my own growth, but as a way to learn and experience by just the act of putting into words those topics I’ve got a pretty good handle on, I see missed opportunities, and the lack of participation in the very thing I am most excited about. The truth may sometimes hurt, but the facing of the truth gives a learnin’ that’s irreplaceable; it can only push you to be better at what you want to do and be.

One of my very first posts on my old blogger account was about web design and, ahem, Front Page (C’mon dude, this was a freakin’ decade ago.) I deleted it two days later because I found this really cool website called A List Apart that made my theories on good design look like ugly dried boogers. I decided I was better off improving my design knowledge than passing myself off as Tim Berners-Lee. Along came awesome tools like Dreamweaver and Adobe 5.0 (changed the world) and I didn’t express myself or what I was learning. I had my opinions, of course, and had learned a couple of things, and forums were there, so I had a chance to soapbox my brand of snake oil.

But, I let that little blogger thing sit there, right up until Google bought it, and then let it sit there some more. The only thing on it, I think, was a post about throwing fried chicken at midget porn stars while they were passing gas, or something. Here I am, Mr. BigShot Marketing dude, with some years in the field, and I write one measly post using poopy humor.

This lost opportunity for self discovery and learning through writing and exploring has made me realize how disappointed I’ve been. I had plenty of new and exciting things I was applying as a designer and marketer that I could have explored beyond the studio. During this time in my career, I was experimenting using new branding position marketing techniques and digging deeper into cost of acquisition metrics. I had read and poo-pooed six sigma theorems, and then worked with colors from the CMG, Color Marketing Group, to focus on the psychology of color and it’s affect on target audiences. Search, in particular, fascinated me and it’s ever growing potential. Instead of trying to find customers, businesses were in a position, if done correctly, to let customers find them. This was really exciting stuff, and I was a part of it. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say, I just didn’t say it.

I’ve had this feeling about my blog for some time now. Exploring my blog, I’ve found some real gems of authoring that I’m happy and proud to have accomplished. The interviews with search and web experts, my reaction to the death of search engines and the subsequent search experiment I did. But there was some, well, just silly stuff on this blog which I only put up as a way to feel like I’ve accomplished something, when all I really did was post up a silly picture. I like silly pictures just like anybody else, but I didn’t achieve anything with them. So I deleted them.  If you’re looking for a silly picture I’ve posted, you might get a neat ol 404.   This blog, really, is about me and my personal journey, with an invitation to you who are reading to add something you feel is important to the dialogue. I might help you out, or you might help me out. And if somebody else comes along, well, they might just help us both out, or in turn find answers that lead them in a new direction. We might connect, or we might realize the differences in philosophy that are important for us to confront in order to establish our own identity and platform. That’s the promise of the web that I wanted to benefit from, and be a part of. That’s the rumblepup I wanted to be, and am determined to be.

Will I present my ideas on Search? Of course I will, I love the topic.  I believe in SEO. Will I address my views on the Internet Industry. Sure, why not? I’ve been in it for 12 years. Will I pass myself off as a big SEO muckity muck? Nope. There’s much more exciting things going on in the world other than any attempt that I might make of writing another treatise on “5 things to improve your search rankings” I mean, if I see another article on “10 tips on improving your blog’s traffic” one more time, I’m gonna puke up the Jungle Juice I had in the third grade. That’s not to say that I won’t be interested in 10 NEW things about traffic, I’d jump on that apeshit style, but you better come up with a better headline.

Rumblepup.com is not going to pretend to be an SEO blog. Rumblepup.com is and will be about rumblepup, who can do SEO and SEM, and explore the areas of growth I’ve been missing out on. As a real good friend told me, “It’s good to take stock of your intellectual inventory and readjust your personal plan.” That’s cool shit right there, and something I can believe in.

What am I going to blog about next?

Only the things I believe in.