An Interesting & Rewarding Challenge

I really enjoyed partcipating in the 2012 BIG Jumpstart Back to Basics Blog Challenge, and I spent some time thinking about why.

This challenge was really all about ActiveRain and it focused our efforts, and our thinking, into some areas we might not normally write about. I think the results were very positive because everyone benefitted - it was rewarding to participate in, and generated a ton of posts well worth reading.

We got a chance to re-visit Weltanschauung and we discovered things there that perhaps we didn't appreciate the first time we read it (plus we learned how to spell it, but probably won't remember by next week).

We took another look at the Community guidelines, and found a structure that mostly made a lot of sense, communicated in a gentle, friendly manner. We shared our takes on what parts we felt were really important, and explained why.

I'm pretty sure we raised our combined skill level with the attention we directed at one of our most powerful resources - ActiveRain University. We were able to increase awareness of what's on offer there, and I wouldn't be surprised if class attendance goes up a good bit.

I think we really did a lot of good with the emphasis on newbies and invitees. Reaching out and letting new members know they are welcome here and that their contributions will be valued is something that we all need to do more often.

The posts on SEO and developing content were outstanding, full of great tips, advice and inspiration. You could see that people were energized by the information that was shared in these topic areas.

And personally, I got a huge benefit from having to write on forced topics - I had to dig deep to find something to say about many of them. It was great practice in a bunch of basic blogging skills - developing themes, writing, playing with style, and coming up with good graphics (the real challenge for me on this one was coming up with a graphic for weltanschauung - I finally settled on portrait of a vaguely Germanic-looking guy who might have said "weltanschauung" at some point in his life).

And interestingly, here at the end, I'm not exhausted - I've actually got more energy for blogging than I started the year with.

I think this challenge enriched and strengthened our community. I'd like to thank Lynn Friedman for coming up with a great idea, as well as doing all the work to make it happen - she did an awesome job here.