Facibus On Blogging

We set up blogs and pour our heart and soul into them. Sometimes we blog until it hurts, and often to the exclusion of those we love. We satisfy ourselves that our daily post is, well, good enough, and click on the Publish button and hope for the best.

“Good enough” is how most of us get through our day. If we didn’t try, we wouldn’t sleep at night. We go to our beds knowing that we did our best, and that our best was, well, good enough.

Seth Godin has challenged us to think beyond good enough.

Good enough is beyond reproach. It’s safe at the same time it represents quality. Good enough demonstrates effort and insight and ability. People rarely get fired for good enough, which is a shame.

He gives us an alternative:

If you redefined the objective to be, “makes some people uncomfortable, changes the entire competitive landscape and is truly remarkable in that many of the key people we reach feel compelled to talk about it,” what would happen?

What does this mean for bloggers?

Most of us won’t get fired for blogging ‘good enough’. Most of us are just not employed to blog. But if we want to differentiate ourselves, and become truly remarkable (and thence be remarked upon), what do we do? Is challenging the accepted wisdom enough? Any fool can disagree with the accepted wisdom (and in the blogosphere, many do).

What might work is this: challenge the accepted wisdom well. Don’t just disagree, but disagree so spectacularly and magnificently that it takes your breath away. Good enough will get you read but it won’t get you to the Technorati Top 100.

Have you ever put together a blog post that totally ripped your heart out and made you cry? Read one that grabbed you and wouldn’t let you go until you’d read the whole thing? What would it be like to write like that all the time?

Note: I’ve entered this post in Darren Rowse’s 31 Days group writing project.