Blogger thoughts on building community

Blogger thoughts on building community Its been a big few weeks here at Brazen Careerist. First, Ive been accepted at 9Rules, a smart, very picky, community of serious bloggers, and Ive been invited to be part of the Washington Posts blog program as well. On top of that, blogs with very heavy traffic have been linking here, so average daily page views for December have jumped to about 4000. With all this attention has come an amazing community of people who comment on the blog and who email me directly. The conversation is a gift to me a bunch of very interesting people who are willing to talk about topics Im interested in. The community is what makes blogging fun. People told me that at the beginning of my life as a blogger, but I didnt get it until a few months later. Hosting a conversation is tricky. Ive been writing a column for seven years. People who have been reading for the whole time have put up with a lot of repetition as I revisit and revisit my pet topics. And when I see a bunch of new readers, I think, the conversation will be better if I get everyone up to speed on these issues. Its a fine line, though. Sarah Davis pointed out that Im repeating myself. Its true. In the post shes referring to I link five or six times to other posts of mine. I think, though, that sometimes to grow with a topic you have to revisit the topic, and look at a slightly different angle. Its a fine line between that and sounding like a scratched record. I am working on finding the right side of that line. Meanwhile, I like that Sarah is sticking with me and reading critically while Im figuring out when to revisit a topic within a fast-growing community. I hope there are lots of people like her out there.