C15LV: Nothing to BLOG About – Think Again

By Franck Pachot

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Before going to the airport to come back in Europe, the las session I assisted at IOUG Collaborate is a panel: Nothing to BLOG About – Think Again

Some famous bloggers were there to help, motivate and inspire people that are afraid to blog. The idea is good. The session was good. The panelists have shared ideas, tips, experience. It was very good.
I’m already a blogger, but that inspired me anyway. In the same idea I’ll expose how I started blogging, just in case it gives some ideas.

Note that tomorrow I speak about participating in the community (read, share, write, talk, blog, tweet, link,…) at our internal event dbi xChange. Thus, waiting at the airport, it’s a good occasion to explain how I start blogging in case it gives some ideas to people that want to start.

In 2010 my participation in the community was mainly in forums (www.dba-village.com in English andwww.developpez.com in French). I was one of the main contributors on www.dba-village.com.

I had no problem of inspiration as soon as I had a question. Then I wanted to go further. Write something on a subject I want to write about – without being guided by a question.
I did a few small papers on Knol. I was reading several blogs and wanted to do the same… but no inspiration.

Then I came upon that on Jonathan Lewis blog:
https://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/chinese-translation/

Someone asked the permission to translate some of his blog posts. He accepted and was very kind to put a page on his blog that references the original articles and the Chinese translation.

Then came the idea to do the same in French, my native language. I set up a blog at www.developpez.com and asked Jonathan Lewis if I can do the same. He accepted and has linked my translations. This is the spirit I like in the blogger area: the love to share. Very experienced people happy to help blogger newbies.

I wanted to write about the concepts (consistent gets, delayed block cleanout, ITL, SCN, redo, undo, …) but was with the idea that it has been blogged already. So I translated. And I had the same permission from Tom Kyte, Cary Millsap, Doug Buns, Greg Rahn. And then I made available their work for French speaking people.

Then everything just went easy. While translating others stuff, I had my own idea. Something else to investigate, to test. And I started my own posts. And I was still active in forums, so the ideas came quickly.

The point was just that I was unable to start because I was afraid to do something that has already been done very well. Then, by translating, I ‘ve done exactly that: something that has already been done very well. But the added value was the language.

This is only my own experience. Everybody can talk about the same subject in a different way: short posts, long posts, with screenshots, with command line code, from real cases, from cases reproduced in labs, using different tools,…

I’ts not because the subject has already been addressed that you can’t start blogging about it. Just give reference to the article that inspired you. Blogging is sharing and networking. And there is not only one kind of reader.

This afternoon at OakTableWorld someone came to me. He is a reader of my blog. I really appreciate to have that kind of feedback. It’s not only technology: it’s a great way to meet people.