I've had quite a few blogs in my relatively short lifetime. All of them were very personal and most of them were public, but none of them were accessible to a professional network, let alone my professional network.
I'm naturally a very open person, but I've noticed that most of the corporate world doesn't seem to coexist with the reality of human nature--which is both a blessing and a curse. (Because you and I both know that there are some people out there who should never ever "be themselves".)
Basically, there are--very generally--two schools of thought regarding the art of blogging. People from the first school will tell you not to get personal on the internet because one missing perspective on your part could result in the obliteration of your entire reputation. The second believes that the act of "baring it all" is a risk worth taking because the potential reward is too great. For example, some bloggers gather such a large following that they gain publishers, advertisers, novelty items...also known as: success & money.
So...
Be myself, get personal, and either reap great rewards or suffer crippling losses...
OR play it safe and have a respectable amount of readers and page views?
Honestly, the former is more my style, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to reach a happy medium and gain the best of both worlds.
This is my first goal.
Goal #2: Post to this blog on a fairly consistent basis.
Goal #3: Convince my mom that this is a good idea.
