Who Is This Blog For?

Vero Beach (wikimap)
27 39.646N 080 22.224W

At a seminar on web pages the other day, the instructor said, "You can even blog from your boat every day. You can tell what a great time you're having, but nobody will want to read it because they're not having the good time." Whoa! There's some truth in that.

It's true that I mostly write this blog because I enjoy the writing. At the same time I want to write stuff that readers enjoy reading. I think I'm succeeding at that, based on email feedback I get, but thanks to new Google technology, I can take a poll in a way easy for me and easy for you.

My mental model when I write the blog is (1) To let our family and friends know that we're safe and happy. (2) To convey a sense of what it is like to life the cruising life style.

You can buy lots of books about cruising, but they mostly dispense advice and relate stories of just the cruising highlights. A daily journal gives a much different picture, and in some cases can be more interesting. That's what I try to do. My friend Pete even said, "Sometimes you even say what your thinking."

Starting today and for the next two weeks in the right margin of this blog are three poll questions.

1. What led you to this blog?
2. What do you like seeing here?
3. How often do you visit the blog?

The answers are quite anonymous, so please feel free to be candid. My purpose in asking the questions is just to refine my mental model of who the readers are so that I can further shape what I write.

Thanks,
Dick